That evening Lallie went into the study to say good-night to Tony. He was reading by the fire, and she came and sat on the floor at his feet, leaning back against his knees as she had done on the evening he corrected papers in the drawing-room. The green silk bag was slung over her arm, but her work was allowed to remain therein, and for once she was content to let her hands lie idle.

"I've come early," she announced, "because if you're not very busy I'd like a little chat. I've turned out the lights and shut the door, for Miss Foster's not coming down again, she says. Isn't it funny to like to go to bed so early?"

"She gets up early, I expect; and perhaps she's very tired at night. Wouldn't you like a cushion or something, don't you find the floor very hard?"

"I'm quite comfortable, thank you. Now listen to me, Tony. Do you think I'm getting to an age when I'd be better with a home of my own?"

With a mental ejaculation of "Ballinger!" Tony adjusted his mind to the question, saying quickly:

"But surely you've got that already."

"No, Tony; that's just what I have not got. As long as old Madame was alive it was all right. Dad came and went as he pleased, but there was always the house for Paddy and me, whether we were in France or in Ireland. But lately I've begun to feel I'm a bit of a drag on Dad; you know how restless he is sometimes, how unexpected----"

"It's a family failing, Lallie," Tony interrupted.

"And, you see, when he rushes off he won't leave me alone in whatever house we happen to be in, and Aunt Emileen seems no comfort to him unless he's in the house along with her; and there's all the fuss of arranging for me, and I'm sent off here and there on visits, whether I like it or not; and I begin to feel that I've no abiding place at all."

"Is your visit here one of the 'nots'?"

"Now that's nasty of you. You know I meant nothing of the kind, and I jumped for joy when Dad said I should come to you for all these months; but when Dad has been home for a bit and the first delight in having me again has worn off, he'll want to be wandering. If it's wandering I can do too, that's all right. I love going about with Dad, but if it's somewhere that he doesn't care to take me, like this time, then it'll all come over again--the placing out--and I hate it."

"But, Lallie, most young people like plenty of change and variety; the one thing they cannot away with is monotony. That's what most of them, girls especially, complain of."

"Tony, I'm going to make a confession." Lallie turned half round, and leaning an elbow on his knee lifted her face, earnest and serious, so that she might look into his. "I'm fond of a house. I like housekeeping, and pottering, and looking after things, and ordering dinner, and sewing, and mending, and arranging flowers, and cooking if I want to, and I can cook well; and you can't do any of these things in other people's houses--at least, only the sewing part."

"I'm sure you may cook here if you wish to. I'll undertake to eat anything you make if it's really good."

"Oh, it's not that. I don't mean that I'd like to be always cooking, but I like to feel that I've got a house to look after--my own house. I'd be perfectly happy if Dad wanted a house, but he doesn't. He kept it up for Paddy and me when we were small because he thought it was the right thing to do; but now he doesn't seem to think it so necessary. Poor man, he's too young to have grown-up children, Tony, and that's a fact. He has small patience with Paddy, because, you know, their interests clash. It's different with a woman, the younger she is the prouder is she to have grown-up sons and the cleverer she thinks herself that they are grown up. Don't you think I'm right?"

"Your generalisation," Tony began deliberately, when Lallie interrupted by pinching his knee and exclaiming:

"Now, none of the schoolmaster, I won't have it."

"As I was about to remark when you interrupted me, what you say has a certain amount of truth in it, but your father has not yet returned from India. When he does return he may not feel the slightest inclination for wandering; at any rate, not for some considerable time--so why worry?"

"I should like to feel settled and secure."

"My dear Lallie, you'll never feel settled, you're not that sort; and as to security, pray in what way do you feel insecure at present?"

Lallie removed her elbow from Tony's knee, she leant back against him again so that he could not see her face, and said, very low:

"I feel insecure because in the course of the next few weeks I'll have to make up my mind definitely one way or other, and whichever way it is, it seems to me I shall regret it."

Again the whole of Tony's mentality fairly cried the name of Ballinger aloud, and although the stillness in the quiet room was so great that you might have heard a pin drop it seemed that his thought must have reached Lallie, for she broke the silence by saying in quite a different tone:

"I wish you had met Dad's friend, Mr. Ballinger, Tony; I'd like to know what you think of him."

"That can be easily managed; we'll ask him to dinner when you come back."

"He is going to the Chesters, you know."

"I didn't know, but I'm glad to hear it for your sake, since you like him."

"Then you don't think I'd be better in a home of my own--married, I mean," said Lallie with startling bluntness.

"I never said anything of the kind."

"Well, you didn't seem to smile upon the notion."

"The notion, as you call it, appears to me in itself quite admirable, if not exactly novel; but you would need to make sure, wouldn't you? that the husband--I think a husband is included in your scheme of felicity--is in keeping............