Ann was glancing through the article.
'It seems to be much the same sort of thing that they have published before. I can't understand why the - Chronicle- takes such an interest in Jimmy Crocker.'
'Well, you see he used to be a newspaper man, and the -Chronicle- was the paper he worked for.'
Ann flushed.
'I know,' she said shortly.
Something in her tone arrested Mr. Pett's attention.
'Yes, yes, of course,' he said hastily. 'I was forgetting.'
There was an awkward silence. Mr. Pett coughed. The matter of young Mr. Crocker's erstwhile connection with the New York -Chronicle- was one which they had tacitly decided to refrain from mentioning.
'I didn't know he was your nephew, uncle Peter.'
'Nephew by marriage,' corrected Mr. Pett a little hurriedly. 'Nesta's sister Eugenia married his father.'
'I suppose that makes me a sort of cousin.'
'A distant cousin.'
'It can't be too distant for me.'
There was a sound of hurried footsteps outside the door. Mrs. Pett entered, holding a paper in her hand. She waved it before Mr. Pett's sympathetic face.
'I know, my dear,' he said backing. 'Ann and I were just talking about it.'
The little photograph had not done Mrs. Pett justice. Seen life-size, she was both handsomer and more formidable than she appeared in reproduction. She was a large woman, with a fine figure and bold and compelling eyes, and her personality crashed disturbingly into the quiet atmosphere of the room. She was the type of woman whom small, diffident men seem to marry instinctively, as unable to help themselves as cockleshell boats sucked into a maelstrom.
'What are you going to do about it?' she demanded, sinking heavily into the chair which her husband had vacated.
This was an aspect of the matter which had not occurred to Mr. Pett. He had not contemplated the possibility of actually doing anything. Nature had made him out of office hours essentially a passive organism, and it was his tendency, when he found himself in a sea of troubles, to float plaintively, not to take arms against it. To pick up the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and fling them back was not a habit of his. He scratched his chin and said nothing. He went on saying nothing.
'If Eugenia had had any sense, she would have foreseen what would happen if she took the boy away from New York where he was working too hard to get into mischief and let him run loose in London with too much money and nothing to do. But, if she had had any sense, she would never have married that impossible Crocker man. As I told her.'
Mrs. Pett paused, and her eyes glowed with reminiscent fire. She was recalling the scene which had taken place three years ago between her sister and herself, when Eugenia had told her of her intention to marry an obscure and middle-aged actor named Bingley Crocker. Mrs. Pett had never seen Bingley Crocker, but she had condemned the proposed match in terms which had ended definitely and forever her relations with her sister. Eugenia was not a woman who welcomed criticism of her actions. She was cast in the same formidable mould as Mrs. Pett and resembled her strikingly both in appearance and character.
Mrs. Pett returned to the present. The past could look after itself. The present demanded surgery.
'One would have thought it would have been obvious even to Eugenia that a boy of twenty-one needed regular work.'
Mr. Pett was glad to come out of his shell here. He was the Apostle of Work, and this sentiment pleased him.
'That's right,' he said. 'Every boy ought to have work.'
'Look at this young Crocker's record since he went to live in London. He is always doing something to make himself notorious. There was that breach-of-promise case, and that fight at the political meeting, and his escapades at Monte Carlo, and--and everything. And he must be drinking himself to death. I think Eugenia's insane. She seems to have no influence over him at all.'
Mr. Pett moaned sympathetically.
'And now the papers have found out that I am his aunt, and I suppose they will print my photograph whenever they publish an article about him.'
She ceased and sat rigid with just wrath. Mr. Pett, who always felt his responsibilities as chorus keenly during these wifely monologues, surmised that a remark from him was indicated.
'It's tough,' he said.
Mrs. Pett turned on him like a wounded tigress.
'What is the use of saying that? It's no use saying anything.'
'No, no,' said Mr. Pett, prudently refraining from pointing out that she had already said a good deal.
'You must do something.'
Ann entered the conversation for the first time. She was not very fond of her aunt, and liked her least when she was bullying Mr. Pett. There was something in Mrs. Pett's character with which the imperiousness which lay beneath Ann's cheerful attitude towards the world was ever at war.
'What can uncle Peter possibly do?' she inquired.
