"Not but what Herbert's the best of boys," she added. "If it weren't that----" She hesitated, she endeavoured to look confused. "The fact is, he's--he's jealous, he's a very jealous man. Not that he has any reason to be--not exactly. Of course I'm awfully fond of him; he's a dear old silly! But I mean to say I can't help it when men want to talk to me--now can I? If I get half-a-dozen men round me, even though we're only talking about the simplest thing, he doesn't like it. Of course it makes it awfully awkward for me socially." "It must," responded Conrad; "yes, I can understand that." "I tell him he should have married a different woman." She giggled. "Ah, but how unreasonable of you!" he said. "Then--if they won't mind being disturbed--I am really to see your children?" "Oh, they won't mind at all, but I'm afraid you'll find them very untidy--they've just been having high jinks." She led him to them presently, and slammed the door behind her. It shook his thoughts to the clergyman's description of Mrs. Page. Heredity again, perhaps. Two girls of about twelve or fourteen years of age and a boy in a pinafore were sitting at a table. At their mother and the visitor's entrance, they all took their hands off the cloth and stared. "And so this is the family?" cried Conrad, trying to sound enthusiastic. "How do you do? And will you say 'how do you do' to me, my little man?" Three limp hands flopped to him in turn, and he stood contemplating the group, while the lady cooed silly questions to them, and elicited dull, constrained replies. They were not attractive children; they were indeed singularly uninteresting children--even for other people's, whose virtues seldom strike us vividly. To Conrad, who failed to allow sufficiently for their shyness, they appeared stupidity personified. "Yes," and "No," they answered; and their eyes were round, and their mouths ajar. Like all children, from the lower to the middle classes inclusive, they proclaimed instantaneously the social stratum of their parents. With a monosyllable a child will do this. It is by no means impossible for a man to exchange remarks with a girl from a show-room, and at the end of five minutes to be still uncertain to what class she belongs. But when the intrusive little cub in the sailor suit romps up to her, he betrays the listless beauty's entourage with the first slovenly words he drops. "Have your cousins any children, Mr. Warrener?" "Yes," he said, "oh yes, they have three or four each." He was speculating what individuality lay concealed behind the vacant fronts. Their mother had been no older than the eldest when he was sick with romance for her--oh, positively "romance," although its expression had been ludicrous in that period. Was it possible that these meaningless little girls also had precocity and sweethearts? Appalling thought--had Mary been so unpleasant? Had he idealised a dirty mouth?