But as she looked furtively into his eyes now, it was difficult for him to believe that the quiver of chemical attraction which for that single second united their nerves had no normal eroticism in it.

The girl was the first to drop her eyes. “Uncle here takes all the time I’ve got, these days,” she murmured; “uncle and the bar⁠—don’t you, you funny old man?”

Mr. Round’s countenance flickered all over with little wrinkles of complacent pride.

“She looks arter me as if she were paid to do it,” he remarked in a hollow voice.

“I’m sure she does,” Wolf responded absentmindedly, his gaze wandering to the surface of Lenty Pond. “I think you’re to be congratulated, Mr. Round, on having so capable a niece,” he added after a pause, with a little more emphasis.