"What can I do for you to-day?" he almost said to the head-master. But he did not say it.
The boot was emphatically not on that leg.
The head- master talked to Mr. Povey, in tones carefully low, for about a quarter of an hour, and then he closed the interview.
Mr. Povey escorted him across the shop, and the head-master said with ordinary loudness:
"Of course it's nothing. But my experience is that it's just as well to be on the safe side, and I thought I'd tell you.
Forewarned is forearmed.
I have other parents to see."
They shook hands at the door.
Then Mr. Povey stepped out on to the pavement and, in front of the whole Square, detained an unwilling head-master for quite another minute.
His face was deeply flushed as he returned into the shop.
The assistants bent closer over their work.
He did not instantly rush into the parlour and communicate with Constance.
He had dropped into a way of conducting many operations by his own unaided brain.
His confidence in his skill had increased with years.
Further, at the back of his mind, there had established itself a vision of Mr. Povey as the seat of government and of Constance and Cyril as a sort of permanent opposition.
He would not have admitted that he saw such a vision, for he was utterly loyal to his wife; but it was there.
This unconfessed vision was one of several causes which had contributed to intensify his inherent tendency towards Machiavellianism and secretiveness.
He said nothing to Constance, nothing to Cyril; but, happening to encounter Amy in the showroom, he was inspired to interrogate her sharply.
The result was that they descended to the cellar together, Amy weeping.
Amy was commanded to hold her tongue.
And as she went in mortal fear of Mr. Povey she did hold her tongue.
Nothing occurred for several days.
And then one morning--it was Constance's birthday: children are nearly always horribly unlucky in their choice of days for sin--Mr. Povey, having executed mysterious movements in the shop after Cyril's departure to school, jammed his hat on his head and ran forth in pursuit of Cyril, whom he intercepted with two other boys, at the corner of Oldcastle Street and Acre Passage.
Cyril stood as if turned into salt.
"Come back home!" said Mr. Povey, grimly; and for the sake of the other boys: "Please."
"But I shall be late for school, father," Cyril weakly urged.
"Never mind."
They passed through the shop together, causing a terrific concealed emotion, and then they did violence to Constance by appearing in the parlour.
Constance was engaged in cutting straws and ribbons to make a straw-frame for a water-colour drawing of a moss-rose which her pure-hearted son had given her as a birthday present.
"Why--what--?" she exclaimed. She said no more at the moment because she was sure, from the faces of her men, that the time was big with fearful events.
"Take your satchel off," Mr. Povey ordered coldly. "And your mortar-board," he added with a peculiar intonation, as if glad thus to prove that Cyril was one of those rude boys who have to be told to take their hats off in a room.
"Whatever's amiss?" Constance murmured under her breath, as Cyril obeyed the command.
"Whatever's amiss?"
Mr. Povey made no immediate answer.
He was in charge of these proceedings, and was very anxious to conduct them with dignity and with complete effectiveness.
Little fat man over fifty, with a wizened face, grey-haired and grey-bearded, he was as nervous as a youth.
His heart beat furiously.
And Constance, the portly matron who would never see forty again, was just as nervous as a girl.
Cyril had gone very white.
All three felt physically sick.
"What money have you got in your pockets?" Mr. Povey demanded, as a commencement.
Cyril, who had had no opportunity to prepare his case, offered no reply.
"You heard what I said," Mr. Povey thundered.
"I've got three-halfpence," Cyril murmured glumly, looking down at the floor.
His lower lip seemed to hang precariously away from his gums.
"Where did you get that from?"
"It's part of what mother gave me," said the boy.
"I did give him a threepenny bit last week," Constance put in guiltily.
"It was a long time since he had had any money."
"If you gave it him, that's enough," said Mr. Povey, quickly, and to the boy: