“Oh, I forgot. They tell me you yourself visit those people, Wolf.”

“Who tells you?”

“Of course, you have to go there for books. I understand that. But there are reasons which are hard to explain, boy, why I’d sooner see you enter⁠ ⁠… enter a workhouse⁠ ⁠… than go into that house.”

“ Mr. Malakite was my father’s friend.”

She raised one of her gloved hands to her mouth at this, as if to restrain the quiverings of her upper-lip. “You don’t know what you’re saying, Wolf! His friend? That man corrupted his soul; and he did it with his accursed books.”

He was saved from making any answer to this by the sound of a familiar but by no means pleasant voice calling him by name.