"Whether I'm clever or no," said Mary, "I'm tired. This chemistry——"
And with that we leave them.
[CHAPTER III]
THE LETTERS
Henry was not such a fool as he looked. You, gentle reader, have certainly by now remarked that you cannot believe that all those years in the Army would have failed to make him a trifle smarter and neater and better disciplined than he appears to be. To which I would reply, having learnt the fact through very bitter personal experience, that it is one of the most astonishing facts in life that you do not change with anything like the ease that you ought to.
That is of course only half the truth, but half the truth it is, and if smuts choose your nose to settle on when you're in your cradle, the probability is that they'll still be settling there when you're in your second childhood.
Henry was changing underneath, as will very shortly, I hope, be made plain, but the hard ugly truth that I am now compelled to declare is that by the early days of June he had got his Baronet's letters into such a devil of a mess that he did not know where he was nor how he was ever going to get straight again. Nevertheless, I must repeat once more—he was not such a fool as he looked.
During all these weeks his lord and master had not glanced at them once.