"Mother doesn't like her style, or her background, or anything about her, and I daresay she's quite right. But why she has to go into a flap every time Timothy makes a mild pass at some good-looking wench is something I shall never fathom." He folded the paper to his satisfaction, and began to fill a pipe before settling down to a happy ten minutes with Our Golf Correspondent. "Your're just as bad," he added severely. "You both of you behave as though Timothy were a kid in his first year at Cambridge. Well, I don't hold any brief for young Timothy, but I should call him a pretty hard-boiled specimen, myself. What's more, he's twenty-seven, and if he can't protect himself from designing blondes now he never will."

"Anyone would think, to hear you, that you didn't care what became of him!" remarked Mrs. Kane. "Besides, it isn't the blonde: it's another girl."

"Fast worker!" observed Mr. Kane.

Mrs. Kane paid no heed to this, but went on reading her mother-in-law's letter, a frown slowly gathering between her brows. She looked up at the end, and said seriously: "Jim, really this isn't funny! He's going to marry her!"

"Timothy?" said Mr. Kane incredulously. "Rot!"

"He told your mother so himself."

"But who is she?"

"That's just it. Your mother says she can't discover who she is. She doesn't seem to have a single relative, or any sort of a background. Her name," said Mrs. Kane, consulting Lady Harte's letter, "is Beulah Birtley. Your mother says that she hopes she isn't a snob - yes, all right, there's no need to make that noise! It isn't being snobbish to want to know what sort of people your son's wife springs from! ,.Anyway, she says she wouldn't mind if only she knew something about the girl, or even liked her."

"Has Mother actually met her?"

"Yes, at Timothy's chambers. She says she can't imagine what Timothy sees in her, because she isn't in the least his type, hasn't any manners, and is obviously yip to no good. In fact, she says Adventuress is written all over her."