Lady Bletchworth wanted a brandy-and-soda, and Conrad had one, too; Mrs. Adaile and Bletchworth drank champagne. Presently they referred to the shooting-box, to the people they expected to see there. Almost for the first time Conrad was blankly sensible of inhabiting a different sphere; he hoped they wouldn't ask him if he knew any of the people they were mentioning. He got very near to his youth in that moment; there was a revival of his boyhood's dumb constraint.... How odd it was! they were all sitting together like this, and after to-night he was never likely to meet her. Front doors between them. 'Gina, of course, might be useful; but how stupid of him not to have got into the right set in town when he came back from the Colony! He supposed it wouldn't have been difficult, with the money. Londoners boasted that everything the world yielded was to be bought in London, and it was true--even to dignities and reputations. "Well, I am forced to admit that I don't know what women go to the moors for," said Bletchworth. "You don't take the sport seriously, and therefore you are out of place. What do you say, Mr. Warrener?" "Well, I can hardly say anything," owned Conrad; "I _don't_ go to the moors." "But if you did, you wouldn't prefer a grouse to a woman, I'm sure?" asked Lady Bletchworth. "A man does not go to the moors to talk to women," insisted her husband. "That is my point. Women always want to flirt just as the birds are rising. Women are very desirable at a dance, but when it comes to birds, or it comes to cricket, when it comes to anything important, I say, reluctantly, they can't be serious. That is my point--you don't take the thing seriously. Now, at the Eton and Harrow, were you earnest about it; had you got the matter at heart? No, no; all you wanted to do was to walk about, and to have lunch." "A lot of boys playing ball!" she said. "And then they take up all the lawn besides. So selfish of them!" "Ah!" said Bletchworth warningly, "that is the tone that is going to do the harm, that is the tone we have to guard against. What has made us what we are? What has given England the place she holds? I protest, I protest absolutely against irresponsible--er--comment. The foreign ideas that are creeping into papers that have always had my--er--approval will sap the country's manhood if we don't make a stand. Joan--I am sure Joan agrees with me?" She was leaning back absently, trifling with a porte-bonheur on her wrist; the blue fire of the diamonds was ablaze. It caught Conrad's glance; from her wrist his gaze travelled to her eyes. They told him, "I'm so bored." "Yes, indeed," she assented, "you're quite right." It would have been evident to anyone but Bletchworth that she had not heard what he said.