“Do you know, I think scientific men are a dreadful race!” she said. “They think that they know so much better than everybody else, and that what they know is so immensely important. As a rule, you know, it’s about something that they really can’t know anything about, and if they could, it would be a great deal better not to bother about it.” She spoke with a confident, conclusive superiority, which is only possible, perhaps, in that section of society to which knowledge and brain-power are among the minor and entirely unimportant factors of life--except when the knowledge is knowledge of the world, and the brain-power that which has adapted itself to the requirements of society. But the superiority in her tone rang strained and false. She seemed to be forcing the attitude on herself even more than on Loring; and there was a faint ring of defiance in her voice--utterly inconsistent and incompatible with the words she spoke. The combination was curiously suggestive of that consuming fear which denies the very existence of that by which it is created. Loring, however, was too fully occupied with a cynical appreciation of the humorous aspect of the wholesale condemnation of learning by crass ignorance to detect anything beneath the surface. An enigmatical smile touched his lips. “There’s a great deal of penetration in what you say,” he said. “Of course, there would be! But I think you’re a little sweeping, perhaps, when you say that they don’t really know anything. Take heredity, for instance; it’s an actual fact, capable of demonstration, that----” But Loring’s eloquence was broken short off. At that moment the door opened, and Julian Romayne came into the room. Mrs. Romayne started to her feet at the sight of him with a strange, hardly articulate sound, which was almost a gasp of relief, though it passed unnoticed by either of the two men, as Julian advanced quickly to Loring. “How are you, old man?” he said pleasantly. “Awfully glad to see you back again.” “This is the reward of merit, you see!” said Mrs. Romayne, as Loring replied, in the same tone. “You come home to tea with your mother, and you find a friend! Will you have some tea, sir?” Her face was still a little odd, and unusual-looking, especially about the eyes; and the touch which she laid upon Julian, as if to enforce her words, was strangely clinging and nervous in its quick pressure. The talk drifted in all sorts of directions after that; all more or less personal, either to the speakers, or to mutual acquaintances. As the moments passed, Loring’s eyes were fixed once or twice, with momentary intentness, on the younger man. That new touch of independence about Julian did not belong only to his manner with his mother. It was just perceptible towards the friend whom he had hitherto admired with boyish enthusiasm. Loring rose to go at last, and as he did so he turned to Julian.