Mr. Aiken was certainly to blame for not locking the door and taking away the key. So he had no excuse for using what is called strong language when he and his wife came back from the Old Water Colour. She had not been in _ten minutes_--a period she laid great stress on--when she heard him shouting inside the Studio. And then he came out in the passage and shouted down the stairs. "Good God, Euphemia! where are you? Where the Devil are you? Do come up here! I'm _ruined_, I tell you! ... that brute of a girl!..." And he went stamping about in his uncontrollable temper. His wife was alarmed, but not to the extent of forgetting to enter her protest against the strong language. "Reginald!" she said with dignity, "have I not often told you that if you say God and Devil I shall go away and spend the rest of the day with my Aunt Priscilla, at Coombe? Before the girl and all!" But her husband was seriously upset at something. "Don't go on talking like an idiot," he said irritably. Then his manner softened, as though he was himself a little penitent for the strong language, and he subsided into "Do come up and see what that confounded girl has done." Those conversant with the niceties of strong language will see there was concession in this. Mrs. Aiken went upstairs, and saw what the confounded girl had done. But she did not seem impressed. "It wants a rub," she said. Then her husband said, "That's just like you, Euphemia. You're a fool." Whereupon the lady said in a dignified manner, "Perhaps if I am a fool, I'd better go." And was, as it were, under compulsion to do so, seeing that no objection was raised. But she must have gone slowly, inasmuch as she presently called back from the landing, "What's that you said?" not without severity. "I said 'Call the girl.'" "You said nothing of the sort. What was it you said before that?" Now, what her husband had said was, "The idea of a _rub_! Idiotic barbarian!" He was unable to qualify this speech effectually, and his wife went some more stairs up. Not to disappear finally; a compromise was possible. "Did you say 'idiotic barbarian,' or 'idiotic barbarians'? Because it makes all the difference." "Barbarians. Plural. Don't be a fool, and come down." Thereupon the lady came back as far as the door, but seemed to waver in concession, for she made reservations. "I am not coming down because of anything," she said, "but only to remind you that that Miss Upwell was to come some time to see the picture, and I think that's her." "What's her? I don't hear anyone at the door." "It's no use gaping out of the front-window. You know quite well what I mean. That's her in the carriage, gone to the Macnivensons' by mistake for us, as people always do and always will, Reginald, until Mrs. Verity gets the Borough Council to change the numbers. 'Thirty-seven A' is a mere mockery."