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“Until you have made yourself acquainted with the depths.”

“A fortnight?”

“I should think that would be enough. Take Brush’s remedy for seasickness and plenty of antipyrin, your fur coat for the crossing, and a white helmet and umbrella for the arrival. You have lead pencils?”

“Plenty.”

“A couple of Merrin’s exercise-books should be enough to contain your notes.”

“When am I to go?”

“The sooner the better. I am at a standstill for want of the material. You might catch the express to Paris to-morrow; no, say the day after to-morrow.” She looked at him tenderly. “The parting will be bitter.”

“Very bitter,” Mr. Eustace Greyne replied.

He felt really upset. Mrs. Greyne laid the hand which had brought them from Phillimore Gardens to Belgrave Square gently upon his.

“Think of the result,” she said. “The greatest book I have done yet. A book that will last. A book that will—-“

“Take us to Park Lane,” he murmured.

The Rembrandtesque head nodded. The noble features, as of a strictly respectable Roman emperor, relaxed.

“A book that will take us to Park Lane.”

At this moment the door opened, and the footman inquired:

“Could Mademoiselle Verbena see you for a minute, ma’am?”

Mademoiselle Verbena was the French governess of the two little Greynes. The great novelist had consented to become a mother.

“Certainly.”

In another moment Mademoiselle Verbena was added to the group beside the fire.

II

We have said that Mademoiselle Verbena was the French governess of little Adolphus and Olivia Greyne, and so she was to this extent–that she taught them French, and that Mr. and Mrs. Greyne supposed her to be a Parisian. But life has its little ironies. Mademoiselle Verbena in the house of this great and respectable novelist was one of them; for she was a Levantine, born at Port Said of a Suez Canal father and a Suez Canal mother. Now, nobody can desire to say anything against Port Said. At the same time, few mothers would inevitably pick it out as the ideal spot from which a beneficent influence for childhood’s happy hour would be certain to emanate. Nor, it must be allowed, is a Suez Canal ancestry specially necessary to a trainer of young souls. It may not be a drawback, but it can hardly be described as an advantage. This, Mademoiselle Verbena was intelligent enough to know. She, therefore, concealed the fact that her father had been a dredger of Monsieur de Lesseps’ triumph, her mother a bar-lady of the historic coal wharf where the ships are fed, and preferred to suppose–and to permit others to suppose–that she had first seen the light in the Rue St. Honore, her parents being a count and countess of some old regime.

This supposition, retained from her earliest years, had affected her appearance and her manner. She was a very neat, very trim, even a very attractive little person, with dark brown, roguish eyes, blue-black hair, a fairy-like figure, and the prettiest hands and feet imaginable. She had first attracted Mrs. Greyne’s attention by her devotion to St. Paul’s Cathedral, and this devotion she still kept up. Whenever she had an hour or two free she always–so she herself said–spent it in “ce charmant St. Paul.”

As she entered the oracle’s retreat she cast down her eyes, and trembled visibly.

“What is it, Miss Verbena?” inquired Mrs. Greyne, with a kindly English accent, calculated to set any poor French creature quite at ease.

Mademoiselle Verbena trembled more.

“I have received bad news, madame.”

“I grieve to hear it. Of what nature?”

“Mamma has une bronchite tres grave.”

“A what, Miss Verbena?”

“Pardon, madame. A very grave bronchitis. She cries for me.”

“Indeed!”

“The doctors say she will die.”

“This is very sad.”

The Levantine wept. Even Suez Canal folk are not proof against all human sympathy. Mr. Greyne blew his nose beside the fire, and Mrs. Greyne said again:

“I repeat that this is very sad.”

“Madame, if I do not go to mamma tomorrow I shall not see her more.”

Mrs. Greyne looked very grave.

“Oh!” she remarked. She thought profoundly for a moment, and then added: “Indeed!”