"Don't interrupt, Brit.--I was going to say that the world's got past all that. Nor Brit wouldn't fly at Amory, nor Cosimo kick the old josser out of the house--though we should be much more ready to condone that part of it if they did--if it was only to get quits with the past a bit----" "My fa-ther's forty-five," Miss Belchamber announced, as the interesting result of an interesting mental process of computation. "Next June," she added. "More interruptions from the back of the hall.--In fact, I'm not sure that _wouldn't_ be entirely defensible--Brit going for Amory and Cosimo kicking the old dodderer out, I mean. That's the justification of the _crime passionel_. It's the Will to Live. And by Live I mean Love. It's the old saying, that kissing lips have no conscience. Or Jove laughs at lovers' oaths. Quite right. It's the New Greek Spirit. But for all that we're modern and rational about these things. If Strong here wanted to take Laura from me I should simply say, 'All you've got to do, my dear chap, is to table your reasons, and if they're stronger than mine you take her.' See?" At that Edgar Strong, like Britomart, looked up. He spoke for the first time.--"What's that you're saying?" he asked. "I don't suppose you'd want her, but suppose you did...." Mr. Strong dropped his eyes to his plate again.--"Ah, yes," he said. "Ellen Key's got something about that." And he relapsed into silence again. It sounded to Amory idiotic. Walter was so evidently "trying" it on them in order to see how it would go down with an audience afterwards. She wouldn't have scratched Britomart's eyes out for Cosimo,--but she coloured a little, and bit her lip, at the thought that somebody might want to come between herself and Edgar.... But perhaps that was what Walter meant--real affinities, as distinct from the ordinary vapid assumptions about marriages being made in Heaven. If so, she agreed with him--not that she was much fonder of him on that account. She wished he would keep his personalities for Cosimo and Britomart, and leave herself and Edgar alone.--Walter went on. "And then, when you've got your New Greek Certificate, so to speak, it's plainly the duty of everybody else, not to put obstacles in your way and to threaten you with razors and cutting off supplies, but to sink their personal feelings and to do everything they can to help you. And without snivelling either. I shouldn't snivel, I hope, if anybody took Laura, and she wouldn't if anybody took me----" Here Laura interposed softly.--"I don't want any one to take you, dear," she said. Walter turned sharply. "Eh?... Now you've put me off my argument.... What was I saying?... Haven't I told you you must _never_ do that, Laura?... No, it's quite gone.... You see ..." Laura murmured that she was very sorry....