446 ANGEL PAVEMENT

becoming slack, indifferent, languid, as if the house
bored her. Mr. Smeeth knew this, and it irritated him,
though he was very fond of the girl.

"Where's Mother?"

"Your mothers out/'

"Where's she gone to? She said she wasn't going out
to-night!"

'The question is, not where she's gone to, but where
you've been to," he said, rather severely, looking at her
over the top of his eyeglasses.

Edna did not stop to examine the logic of this, or if
she did, she did not comment upon it, being still young
enough to recognise the right of parents to talk in
this fashion. "Been to the pictures—first house/' she
replied.

"What again! I'm surprised you don't go and live
there. You've been once this week, haven't you? Yes, I
thought so. And I suppose you'll be wanting to go on
Saturday. That'll be three times in one week—three
times. Paid ninepence too, I suppose. And who gave
you the money to go to-night?"

"Mother did." And Edna looked slightly confused.
Her father, noticing this, jumped at once to the wrong
conclusion—namely, that Edna had been told to say
nothing about this extra visit to the pictures to him and
had suddenly realised what she had done. The truth
was, however, that Edna was confused, not because she
had spent another ninepence, but because the money
was still in her possession, for she had gone to the
pictures as the guest of one Harry Gibson, Minnie
Watson's friend's friend, who, in his turn, was supposed,
by his parents in their turn, to have been attending an
evening class in accountancy on this particular night.