"I can't have it in the house. I can't lose my lodgers. It would frighten the lodgers."
"No, I don't," replied Francis, rather petulantly.
Mrs. Lipsett had risen to her feet. Now she sank back again into her chair and began to cry. Francis preferred that to her incoherence.
"My good woman," he said. "You seem to be in some trouble. If I can give you any consolation . . ."
"I am in trouble," moaned Mrs. Lipsett. "I'm always in trouble. I've never been out of trouble since I was born. Some people are like that you know."
These reflections cheered her up perceptibly, and she asked Francis if he would mind if she began to cook the first floor's tea.
"My good woman," he said, "will you kindly explain what my son has to do with all this, and why he has brought me here?"
Mrs. Lipsett had moved to the table and taken up an armful of linen.
Mrs. Lipsett dropped her linen, ran to the door and screamed "Annie!"
Mrs. Lipsett turned to Francis, folded her arms and with her lips tight pressed she worried out her words:
"Not told you, hasn't he? Leaving me to make a nice fool of myself! I've heard of you, Mr. Folyat! That innocent you are that you don't know you're born yet. . . ."
Annie came in and cut short anything else she might have to say.
"Sloped, has he? Sloped!--This is Mr. Folyat's father."
An awkward silence came on the three of them, and all three thought of Frederic with varying degrees of wrath.
Mrs. Lipsett dropped into the vernacular.
Francis took his hat and rose with some dignity.
"I am sorry," he said, "but as neither of you seem disposed to enlighten me . . ."
Annie stood between him and the door. She blurted out:
"It's Fred, Mr. Folyat. It wasn't fair of him to leave you alone with mother like that. We saw you going by and he said he'd go and tell you. I suppose he didn't. He's like that. He means well."
"Please, mother!" Annie went on. "Fred ought to have told you, Mr. Folyat. I'm as much to blame as he is. I suppose I'm very wicked, but there's some things you can't help. We didn't think, I suppose. But it's come to that, that we've got to think. I'm going to be a mother in three months, and Fred wants to help as much as he can."
"Yes. The beauty! Ain't you proud of him?"
Frederic! Francis was not so much shocked as amazed. He was only too accustomed to irregularity, large and small, but he had always regarded the victims of it as creatures of another clay. Automatically by their offence they passed from one compartment of his mind to another. Where possible they were given benefit of clergy, but only as one finds a home for a stray dog. . . .