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The room grew hot; every one seemed to be talking at once—screaming about the Fifth Form at St. Dominics, or Black Beauty, or both. It seemed that Arnold, when he was at Rugby, had exchanged one or both with Concha for a Shakespeare, illustrated by photographs of leading actors and actresses, and that he wanted them back.

“Ah! he is thinking of his own children. Does it mean ... can he be going to ...?” thought the Doña, delighted at the thought of the children, frightened at the thought of the wife.

“You must certainly give them back to Arnold, Concha; they’re his,” she said firmly.

“I like that! When he got such an extremely good bargain, too! He always did in his deals with me.”

“Anna has a Black Beauty, you might wangle it out of her by offering to teach her carpentry or something ... something she could get a new badge for in the Girl Guides.”

“But it’s my own copy that I want.”

And so on, what time Dick at the foot of the table shook like a jelly with delighted laughter.

Nothing makes parents—even detached ones like Dick—so happy as to see their grown-up offspring behaving like children.