“Before what?”

“Oh, the last couple of months or so. Old Jonathan ran into her somewhere, found out she was some kind of seventeenth cousin, and brought her back on a visit. She hasn’t any people and she hasn’t any money, but she’s got a very clinging disposition, and if you ask me, I should say they’ll have her for keeps.”

Frank was not interested in Mirrie Field-not then. He said, “Did I ask you?” in his most detached manner, and she pinched his arm and told him he would probably fall in love with Georgina Grey.

“Only I warn you it won’t be the least bit of good, because if she doesn’t take Anthony, it will almost certainly be Johnny Fabian.”

“Oh-what is he doing in your parts?”

“Making love to Georgina, I expect. Or Mirrie. Or both of them, but probably Georgina because of the money. He hasn’t got a bean, and she is supposed to be Jonathan’s heiress. Personally I should say that Mirrie was a runner-up, but Johnny can’t afford to take risks. Anyhow, money or no money, Georgina will be an ass if she marries him. I don’t suppose she will -she ought to know him too well for that. His stepmother, Mrs. Fabian, lives at Field End, you know.”

Frank’s memory began to wake up.

“Oh, yes, I remember. She’s some sort of relation, isn’t she -used to run the house?”

“Darling, she couldn’t run a rabbit-hutch! She’s an umpteenth cousin of old Jonathan’s, and when he took on Georgina it was considered the right thing to have someone like that in the house. I think he clung to her as a protection against nurses and governesses who wanted to boss him or marry him. Miss Vinnie says there were several determined attempts, so you may say Mrs. Fabian began by being Jonathan’s chaperone. Miss Vinnie says he was dreadfully nervous about breaths of scandal. And of course Mrs. Fabian has clung like a leech. No, that’s too bad of me-she’s perfectly harmless, only quite terribly inefficient. I couldn’t stand it myself, but I expect they are used to her. It’s all right as long as Georgina doesn’t let herself get so used to Johnny that she wakes up one morning and finds she has married him.”