There was silence. Cries came from the tennis players, who were just out of sight, and a hum of conversation from nearer groups. “What are you going to do when you get back to town, Miss Meres?” Vincent asked, regarding her again. “I don’t know, I’m sure,” she answered vaguely. “Live as usual, I suppose; unless I take some decided step.” “Decided step? By Jove, how it refreshes me to hear you speak like that! What decided step?” “I don’t know. I’m very much in your own position, you know; I shall have to earn a living somehow.” She said it very simply, looking down, and making marks on the grass with the handle of the racket. “A living? Women don’t make a living; that’s all done for them.” “Is it?” said Rhoda, and, as soon as the words were spoken, she rose, averting her face. “There’s our set called!” she exclaimed; “I must go.” He made a slight gesture as if about to exert himself to detain her; but she was gone. His eyes followed her dreamily. “Oh, here you are, Vincent!” cried Mrs. Bruce Page, close at hand. “Have you _really_ a headache, now? Poor boy! you don’t look well. Come along with me, I want you to talk with Mr. Asquith, Mrs. Clarendon’s cousin, you know. He knows all about the Civil Service.” Robert received the young man with a look critical indeed, but good-humouredly so. He did not seem to be able to take Mr. Lacour quite seriously, yet could not refuse a certain admiration. “You are thinking of the Civil Service examinations?” he began. “Well, I can’t say I’ve thought much about them,” Vincent replied, in his manner suggestive of easy achievement. “I suppose they’re very much a matter of form--the elements--and--and so on?” “Not quite that. And competition, you remember.” “Yes. The truth is, I haven’t looked into the thing. What do they expect you to know?” Asquith gave an outline of the attainments looked for in a candidate for the higher clerkships. “By Jove, that’s pretty strong!” was Vincent’s comment. “The competition,” remarked Asquith, “makes it about the severest examination you can undergo.” “Then _that’s_ all up!” exclaimed the young “What would the screw be?” “You would begin with a hundred a year, and by slow degrees rise to four,” said Robert, curling his moustache. “The deuce you would! Then I may with honour withdraw from so ignoble a competition. You can’t suggest any way of making the four hundred at start? I dare say Mrs. Clarendon’s told you all about me. I don’t mind who knows. There’s a great deal of false shame in the world, it seems to me; don’t you think so? But I really think it’s time I turned to something, and what’s the good of one’s friends if they can’t suggest a plan? Of course the social structure is radically wrong. A man like myself--I have brains, I beg you to believe--oughtn’t to find himself thrown out of it in this way. I shall be infinitely obliged to any one who suggests something.”