The sisters repaired to Edgware Road, and after much searching finally ran to earth a desirable hat for at least the odd farthing less than it would have cost round the corner in Oxford Street.  This saving would have existed only in imagination to the ordinary customer, who is presented with a paper of nail-like pins, a rusty bodkin, or a highly-superfluous button-hook as a substitute for lawful change; but Margot took a mischievous delight in collecting farthings and paying down the exact sum in establishments devoted to eleven-threes, to the disgust of the young ladies who supplied her demands.

The hat was carried home in true Bohemian fashion, encased in a huge paper bag, and a happy hour ensued, when the contents of the scrap-box were scattered over the bed, and a dozen different effects studied in turn.  Edith sat on a chair before the glass with the skeleton frame perched on her head at the accepted fashionable angle, criticising fresh draperies and arrangement of flowers, and from time to time uttering sharp exclamations of pain as Margot’s actions led to an injudicious use of the dagger-like pins.  Her delicate finely-cut face and misty hair made her a delightful model, and she smiled back at the face in the mirror, reflecting that if you happened to be a pauper, it was at least satisfactory to be a pretty one, and that to possess long, curling eyelashes was a distinct compensation in life.  Margot draped an old lace veil over the hard brim, caught it together at the back with a paste button, and pinned a cluster of brown roses beneath the brim, with just one pink one among the number, to give the cachet to the whole.

“There’s Bond Street for you!” she cried triumphantly; and Edith flushed with pleasure, and wriggled round and round to admire herself from different points of view.

“It is a tonic!” she declared gratefully.  “You are a born milliner, Margot.  It will be a pleasure to go out in this hat, and I shall feel quite nice and conceited again.  It’s so long since I’ve felt conceited!  I’m ever and ever so much obliged.  Can you stay on a little longer, dear, or are you in a hurry to get back?”

“No!  I shall get a scolding anyway, so I might as well have all the fling I can get.  I’ll have tea with you and the boys, and a little private chat with Jack afterwards.  You won’t mind leaving us alone for a few minutes?  It’s something about Ron, but I won’t promise not to get in a little flirtation on my own account.”

Jack’s wife laughed happily.

“Flirt away-it will cheer him up!  I’ll put the boys to bed, and give you a fine opportunity.  Here they come, back from their walk.  I must hurry, dear, and cut bread and butter.  I’ll carry down the hat, and put it on when Jack comes in.”

Aunt Margot’s appearance at tea was hailed with a somewhat qualified approval.

“You must talk to us, mother,” Jim said sternly; “talk properly, not only, `Yes, dear,’ `No, dear,’ like you do sometimes, and then go on speaking to her about what we can’t understand.  She’s had you all afternoon!”

“So I have, Jim.  It’s your turn now.  What do you want to say?”

Jim immediately lapsed into silence.  Having gained his point, he had no remark to offer, but Pat lifted his curly head and asked eagerly-

“Muzzer, shall I ever grow up to be a king?”

“No, my son; little boys like you are never kings.”

“Not if I’m very good, and do what I’m told?”

“No, dear, not even then.  No one can be a king unless his father is a king, too, or some very, very great man.  What has put that in your head, I wonder?  Why do you want to be a king?”

Pat widened his clear grey eyes; the afternoon sunshine shone on his ruffled head, turning his curls to gold, until he looked like some exquisite cherub, too good and beautiful for this wicked world.

“’Cause if I was a king I could take people prisoners and cut off their heads, and stick them upon posts,” he said sweetly; his mother and aunt exchanged horrified glances.  Pat alternated between moods of angelic tenderness, when every tiger was a “good, good tiger,” and naughty children “never did it any more,” and a condition of frank cannibalism, when he literally wallowed in atrocities.  His mother forbode to lecture, but judiciously turned the conversation.

“Kings can do much nicer things than that, Patsy boy.  Our kind King Edward doesn’t like cutting off heads a bit.  He is always trying to prevent men from fighting with each other.”

“Is he?”

“Yes, he is.  People call him the Peace-maker, because he prevents so many wars.”

“Bother him!” cried Pat fervently.

Margot giggled helplessly.  Mrs Martin stared fixedly out of the window, and Jim in his turn took up the ball of conversation.

“Mummie, will you die before me?”

“I can’t tell, dear; nobody knows.”

“Will daddy die before me?”

“Probably he will.”

“May I have his penknife when he’s dead?”

“I think it’s about time to cut up that lovely new cake!” cried Margot, saving the situation with admirable promptitude.  “We bought it for you this afternoon, and it tastes of chocolate, and all sorts of good things.”

The bait was successful, and a silence followed, eloquent of intense enjoyment; then the table was cleared and various games were played, in the midst of which Jack’s whistle sounded from without, and his wife and sons rushed to meet him.  They looked a typical family group as they re-entered the room, Edith happily hanging on to his arm, the boys prancing round his feet, and the onlooker felt a little pang of loneliness at the sight.

John Martin was a tall, well-made man, with a clean-shaven face and deep-set grey eyes.  He was pale and lined, and a nervous twitching of the eyelids testified to the strain through which he had passed, but it was a strong face and a pleasant face, and, when he looked at his wife, a face of indescribable tenderness.  At the moment he was smiling, for it was always a pleasure to see his pretty sister-in-law, and to-night Edith’s anxious looks had departed, and she skipped by his side as eager and excited as the boys themselves.

“Dad, dad, has there been any more ’splosions?”

“Hasn’t there been no fearful doings on in the world, daddy?”

“Jack!  Jack!  I’ve got a new tonic.  It has done me such a lot of good!”

Jack turned from one to the other.

“No, boys, no,-no more accidents to-day!  What is it, darling?  You look radiant.  What is the joke?”

“Look out of the window for a minute!  Margot, you talk to him, and don’t let him look round.”

Edith pinned on the new hat before the mirror, carefully adjusting the angles, and pulling out her cloudy hair to fill in the necessary spaces.  Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes sparkled; it was no longer the worn white wife, but a pretty, coquettish girl, who danced up to Jack’s side with saucy, uplifted head.

“There!  What do you think of that?”

The answer of the glowing eyes was more eloquent than words.  Jack whistled softly beneath his breath, walking slowly round and round to take in the whole effect.

“I say, that is fetching!  That’s something like a hat you wore the summer we were engaged.  You don’t look a day older.  Where did you run that to earth, darling?”

“Can’t you see Bond Street in every curve?  I should have thought it was self-evident.  Margot said I was shabby, and that a new hat would do me good, so we went out and bought it.  Do you think I am extravagant?  It’s better to spend on this than on medicine, and three guineas isn’t expensive for real lace, is it?”

She peered in her husband’s face with simulated anxiety, but his smile breathed pleasure unqualified.

“I’m delighted that you have bought something at last!  You have not spent a penny on yourself for goodness knows how long.”

“Goose!” cried Edith.  “He has swallowed it at a gulp.  Three guineas, indeed-as if I dare!  Four and eleven-pence three-farthings in Edgware Road, and my old lace veil, and one of the paste buttons you gave me at Christmas, and some roses off last year’s hat, and Margot’s clever fingers, and my-pretty face!  Do you think I am pretty still?”

“I should rather think I do!” Jack framed his wife’s face in his hands, stooping to kiss the soft flushed cheeks as fondly as he had done in the time of that other lace-wreathed hat six years before.  Pat and Jim returned to their dominoes, bored by such foolish proceedings on the part of their parents, while Margot covered her face with her hands, with ostentatious propriety.

“This is no place for me!  Consider my feelings, Jack.  I’m like a story I once read in an old volume of Good Words, `Lovely yet Unloved!’ When you have quite finished love-making, I want a private chat with you, while Edie puts the boys to bed.  They will hate me for suggesting such a thing, but it is already past their hour, and I must have ten minutes’ talk on a point of life and death!”

“Come away, boys; we are not wanted here.  Daddy will come upstairs and see you again before you go to sleep.”

Mother and sons departed together, and Jack Martin sat down on the corner of the sofa and leant his head on his hand.  With his wife’s departure the light went out of his face, but he smiled at his sister-in-law with an air of affectionate camaraderie.

“You are a little brick, Margot!  You have done Edie a world of good.  What can I do for you in return?  I am at your service.”

Margot pulled forward the chair that her sister had chosen as the least lumpy which the room afforded, and seated herself before him, returning his glance with an odd mixture of mischief and embarrassment.

“It’s about Ron.  The year of probation is nearly over.”

“I know it.”

“Two months more will decide whether he is to be a broker or a poet.  It will mean death to Ronald to be sent into the City.”

“You are wrong there.  If he is a poet, no amount of brokering will alter the fact, any more than it will change the colour of his eyes or hair.  It is bound to come out sooner or later.  You will probably think me a brute, if I suggest that a little discipline and knowledge of the world might improve the value of his writings.”

“Yes, I will!  What does a poet want with a knowledge of the world, in the common, sordid sense?  Let him keep his mind unsullied, and be an inspiration to others.  When we were children, we used to keep birds in the nursery, in a very fine cage with golden bars, and we fed them with every bird delicacy we could find.  They lived for a little time, and tried to sing, poor brave things!  We threw away the cage in a fury, after finding one soft dead thing after another lying huddled up in a corner.  No one shall cage Ronald, if I can prevent it!  It’s no use pretending to be cold-blooded and middle-aged, Jack, for I know you are with us at heart.  This means every bit as much to Ron as your business troubles do to you.”

Jack drew in his breath with a wince of pain.

“Well, what is it you wish me to do?  I am afraid I have very little influence in the literary world, and I have always heard that introductions do more harm than good.  An editor would soon ruin his paper if he accepted all the manuscripts pressed upon him by admiring relatives.”

“But you see I don’t ask you for an introduction.  It’s just a piece of information I want, which I can’t get for myself.  You know the Loadstar Magazine?”

“Certainly I do.”

“Well, the Loadstar is-the Loadstar!  The summit of Ron’s ambition.  It’s the magazine of all others which he likes and admires, and the editor is known to be a man of great power and discernment.  It is said that if he has the will, he can do more than any man in London to help on young writers.  It is useless sending manuscripts, for he refuses to consider unsolicited poetical contributions.  He shuts himself up in a fastness in Fleet Street, and the door thereof is guarded with dragons with lying tongues.  I know!  I have made it my business to inquire, but I feel convinced that if he once gave Ron a fair reading, he would acknowledge his gifts.  There is no hope of approaching him direct, but I intend to get hold of him all the same.”

Jack Martin looked up at that, his thin face twitching into a smile.

“You little baggage! and you expect me to help you.  I must hear some more about this before I involve myself any further.  What mischief are you up to now?”

“Dear Jack, what can I do; a little girl like me?” cried Miss Margot, mightily meek all of a sudden, as she realised that she had ventured a step too far.  “I wouldn’t for the whole world get you into trouble.  It’s just a little, simple thing that I want you to find out from some one in the office.”

“I don’t know any one in the office.”

“But you could find out some one who did?  For instance, you know that Mr Oliver who illustrates?  I’ve seen his things in the Loadstar.  You could ask him in a casual, off-hand manner without ever mentioning our name.”

“What could I ask him?”

“Such a nice, simple little question!  Just the name of the place where the editor proposes to spend this summer holiday, and the date on which he will start.”

Jack stared in amazement, but the meekest, most demure of maidens confronted him from the opposite chair, with eyes so translucently candid, lips so guilelessly sweet, that it seemed incredible that any hidden mischief could lurk behind the innocent question.  Nevertheless seven years’ intimacy with Miss Margot made Jack Martin suspicious of mischief.

“What do you know about this editor man?  Have you seen him anywhere?  He is handsome, I suppose, and a bachelor?”

“You’re a wretch!” retorted Miss Margot.  “I don’t know the man from Adam, and he may be a Methuselah for all I care; but if possible I want it to happen that Ron and I chance to be staying in the same place, in the same house, or hotel, or pension, whichever it may be, when he goes away for his yearly rest.  We are going to the country in any case-why should we not be guided by the choice of those older and wiser than ourselves?  Why should we not meet the one of all others we are most anxious to know?”

“Just so! and having done so, you will confide in the editor that Ronald is an embryo Poet Laureate, and try to enlist his kind sympathy and assistance!”

Margot smiled; a smile of lofty superiority.

“No, indeed!  I know rather better than that!  He will be out on a holiday, poor man, and won’t want to be troubled with literary aspirants.  He has enough of them all the year round.  We’ll never mention poetry, but we will try to get to know him, and to make him like us so much that he will want to see more of us when we return to town.  No one can live in the same house with Ron, and have an opportunity of talking to him day by day, without feeling that he is different from other boys, and alone together in the country one can never tell what may happen.  Opportunities may arise, too; opportunities for help and service.  We would be on the look-out for them, and would try by every means in our power to forge the first link in the chain.  Don’t look so solemn, old Jack, it’s all perfectly innocent!  You can trust me to do nothing you would disapprove.”

“I believe I can.  You are a madcap, Margot, but you are a good girl.  I’m not afraid of you, but I imagine that the editor will be a match for a dozen youngsters like you and Ron, and will soon see through your little scheme.  However, I’ll do what I can.  In big offices holiday arrangements have to be made a good while ahead, so it ought not to be difficult to get the information you want.  Now I must be off upstairs to see the boys before they get into bed.  Shall I see you again when I come down?”

“No, indeed!  I’ve played truant since half-past eleven, so I shall have to hang about the end of the terrace until father appears, and go in under his wing, to escape a scolding from Agnes.  I had arranged to pay calls with her this afternoon.  I wonder how it is that my memory is so dreadfully uncertain about things I don’t want to do!  Good-bye then, Jack, and a hundred thanks.  Posterity will thank you for your help.”

Jack Martin laughed and shrugged his shoulders.  He had a man’s typical disbelief in the ability of his wife’s relatives.