Indeed it might be awkward for my scheme if I was too openly associated with Fraser and Warren.
"I already think of myself as Williams--I shall pose of course as a Welshman.

My appearance _is_ rather Welsh, don't you think?
It's the Irish blood that makes me look Keltic--I'm sure my father was an Irish student for the priesthood at Louvain, and certain scraps of information I got out of mother make me believe that _her_ mother was a pretty Welsh girl from Cardiff, brought over to London Town by some ship's captain and stranded there, on Tower Hill.
"However, I have still the whole scheme to work out and when I'm ready to start on it--which will be very soon--I'll let you know.
Now, though I'd love to discuss all the other details, I mustn't forget your mother will be wanting you--I wish _I_ had a mother to tend--I wonder" (wistfully) "whether I was too hard on mine?
"D'you mind posting these letters as you go out?
I shall change back to Vivie Warren in a dressing gown, give myself a light supper, and then put in two hours studying Latin and Norman French.

Good night, dearest!" Two months after this conversation Vivie decided to pay a call on an old friend of her mother's, Lewis Maitland Praed, if you want his full name, a well-known architect, and one of the few male friends of Catherine Warren who had not also been her lover.

Why, he never quite knew himself.

When he first met her she was the boon companion, the mistress--more or less, and unattached--of a young barrister, a college friend of Praed's.