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The tongue was a healthy pink. Grace shook her head doubtfully.

“I’m not sick, mummy,” protested the child. “I’m just—just frightened.”

Grace rose to her feet slowly, Joan clinging to her skirt.

“Perhaps I had better not go,” she said to Miss Whipple. “I’ve never known Joan to say she was frightened before. Perhaps she is sickening for something.”

“Nonsense, my dear, nonsense,” replied Miss Whipple impatiently. “The child is probably hungry. She has a little sinking feeling, that’s all. Go and do your shopping. Nothing can happen in the little while you’ll be away.”

“Do you think you will be all right until I come back, Joan?” asked Grace anxiously.

“I—I think so, mummy. But I’d rather go with you.”

Joan looked pleadingly into her mother’s eyes, and Grace was about to give way to the child when Miss Whipple intervened. The old lady pounced upon Joan and held her to her bosom so tightly that the jade necklace pressed painfully upon the child’s cheek. Joan protested noisily.

“There’s nothing wrong with the child,” insisted the old lady as Joan fought to free herself. “Run along, do. You have two minutes to catch the bus. You’ll miss it if you don’t hurry.”

Grace kissed the angry Joan, exhorted her to behave, and hurried from the room with a word of farewell to Miss Whipple.

“You’re a nasty old woman!” she heard Joan shriek as she hurried along the passage to the stairs. “I don’t want you! I want mummy!”

Grace hesitated at the head of the stairs.. She turned to retrace her steps. Then she remembered the purpose of her errand, and, with an insistent honking of a motor-horn to support her resolution, she hastened down the stairs and into the sunshine.