Mrs. Baynes’s eyes dropped; they had no intention of doing so, but they did. They recovered immediately.

“Of course not. That’s Phil all over⁠—he was always like that!”

“Was he?” said June.

The brevity of the answer caused Mrs. Baynes’s bright smile a moment’s hesitation; she disguised it by a quick movement, and spreading her skirts afresh, said: “Why, my dear⁠—he’s quite the most harum-scarum person; one never pays the slightest attention to what he does!”

The conviction came suddenly to June that she was wasting her time; even were she to put a question point-blank, she would never get anything out of this woman.

“Do you see him?” she asked, her face crimsoning.