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that you have no knowledge of your mother’s maiden name?”
    “I told you I hadn’t.”
    “Or where your father met her?”
    Margot shook her head.
    “You don’t know where they were married?”
    “No. I don’t know anything at all—I told you I didn’t.”
    “Do you know where you were born?”
    “N-no. At least—No, I don’t know.”
    “What were you going to say? You were going to say something.”
    “Only—no, I don’t know anything—only I don’t think I was born in England.”
    “Ah! Can you tell me why?”
    “He said—it was long ago when I was a little girl—he said, talking about himself, that he was born in Africa. And I said ‘Where was I born?’ and he said ‘A long way from here.’ So I thought perhaps I wasn’t born in England.”
    Mr. Hale made the clicking noise with his tongue which is generally written “Tut-tut!” It expressed contempt for this reminiscence. As evidence it simply didn’t exist. He cleared his throat more portentously than before.
    “Miss Standing, if no will is found, and no certificate of your mother’s marriage or of your own birth is forthcoming, your position becomes extremely serious.”
    Margot paused with a chocolate on its way to her mouth.
    “Why does it become serious? I’m Papa’s daughter.”
    “There is no proof even of that,” said Mr. Hale.
    Margot burst out laughing.
    “Oh!” she said. “How frightfully funny that sounds! Why everyone knows I’m his daughter! How frightfully funny you are! Who do you think I am, if I’m not Margot Standing? Why, it’s too silly!”
    Mr. Hale frowned.
    “Miss Standing, this is a very serious matter, and I beg that you will treat it seriously. I do not believe that Mr. Standing made a will. I know that he had not made one six weeks ago, for he paid my father a visit on the twentieth of August, and after he had gone my father told me that he had been urging upon Mr. Standing the necessity of making his will. My father then used these words: ‘It is a very strange thing,’ he said, ‘that a man in Mr. Standing’s circumstances should have deferred such a simple and necessary action as the making of a will. And in his daughter’s peculiar circumstances he certainly owes it to her to make sure of her provision.’ Now, Miss Standing, those are the exact words my father used, and I take them to mean that he was cognizant of some irregularity in your position.”
    Margot opened her eyes very wide indeed.
    “What on earth do you mean?”
    “In the absence of any information about your mother, and in the light of what my father said—”
    “Good gracious! What do you mean?”
    “I mean,” said Mr. Hale, “that it is possible that there was no marriage.”
    “But good gracious, there’s me!” said Miss Standing.
    “It’s possible that you are illegitimate.”
    Miss Standing gazed at him in silence. After a moment she repeated the word illegitimate in a tentative way; it seemed to touch a chord. She brightened visibly and said in a tone full of interest,
    “Like William the Conqueror—and all those sons of Charles II?”
    “Quite so,” said Mr. Hale.
    “How frightfully thrilling!” exclaimed Miss Standing.
    CHAPTER VI
    When Mr. Hale had finished explaining the exact legal position of an illegitimate daughter whose father had died intestate, Miss Standing’s eyes were round with indignation.
    “I never heard anything so frightfully unjust in all my life,” she said firmly.
    “I’m afraid that doesn’t alter the law.”
    “What’s the good of women having the vote then? I thought all those frightful unjust laws were going to be altered at once when women got the vote. Miss Clay always said so.”
    Mr. Hale had never heard of Miss Clay, who was in fact an undermistress at Mme. Mardon’s. He himself had always been opposed to women’s suffrage.
    “Do you mean to say”—Miss Standing sat bolt upright with her plump hands clasped on her blue serge knee—“do you actually mean