Christina sighed. "There are points about the bourgeoisie mind which are admirable," she said. "What does 'bourgeoisie' mean? The bourgeoisie are the people who have names instead of numbers to their houses; they catch the nine twenty-five to town and go home by the five seventeen. They go to church at least once on Sunday and their wives wear fascinators and patronize the dress circle." "You talk such rubbish, Christina. I can't make head or tail of it half the time. I don't see what it has got to do with my not going in to Ronnie's flat. It wouldn't be respectable." "Why didn't I think of that word?" wailed Christina. "Evie." "Huh?" said Evie, her mouth full of pins and in an unconscious imitation of one who, did she but know it, held her soul in the hollow of his hands. "Where do you meet your lad--I simply can't say 'boy'?" "Oh, anywhere," said Evie vaguely. "We used to meet a lot in the park. As a matter of fact, that is where I first saw him, but now he doesn't go to the park. He says the crowd is vulgar and it is you know, Christina; why I've heard men addressing meetings and saying that there wasn't a God! And talking about the king most familiarly. It made my blood boil!" "I don't suppose the king minds, and I'm sure God only laughed." "Christina!" "Well, why not? What's the use of being God if He hasn't a sense of humor? He has everything He wants, and that is one of the first blessings He would give Himself. Where do you meet Ronnie, Evie?" "Sometimes I have dinner with him, and sometimes we just meet at the tube station and go to the pictures." Christina pinched her chin in thought. "He knows that girl who came to see you, Miss Merville. I told him about her visit, and he asked me if she knew that I was a friend of his, and whether she had seen me. She rather runs after him, I think. He doesn't say so, he is too much a gentleman. I can't imagine Ronnie saying anything unkind." "But he sort of hinted," suggested Christina. "You are uncharitable, Christina! Nothing Ronnie does is right in your eyes. Of course he didn't hint. It is the way he looks, when I speak about her. I know that he doesn't like her very much. He admitted it, because, just after we had been talking about her, he said that I was the only girl he had ever met who did not bore him--unutterably. His very words!" "That was certainly convincing evidence," said Christina, and her sister arrested the motion of her hair brush to look suspiciously in her direction. You could never be sure whether Christina was being nice or unpleasant. II