“Well, I’ll take ’em on single-handed, in defence of virginity,” said Quentin, “though chastity requires no defence, for, as Judas Thomas tells us, chastity is an athlete who is not overcome. How beautiful is the story of Perpetua, the virgin martyred at Carthage, and of Thekla, for whom the lioness fought with other beasts in the arena! No, Ambrose. Purity is absolute. The pure virgin cannot be defiled, for her heart is not in the work. And that is why we need have no scruples regarding her.” “Thekla?” asked Ambrose. “I am not acquainted with that story. I must look it up.” 6 At ten o’clock precisely Ambrose reported to Lord Sombrewater, who was playing bridge with his captain and two of the three ladies—Lady Frew-Gaff and Mrs. Sprot. Ruby’s red head was bent over a book and Lady Sombrewater knitted. The three ladies did not differ in appearance more noticeably than sparrows. Indeed, they closely resembled sparrows, among the painted bamboos. They had all three been very pretty girls, and that was why their husbands had married them. They had married them before they knew exactly what kind of prettiness and what accomplishments they required women to have. As regards Lady Sombrewater, the very negative of her husband, Ambrose wondered how Lychnis had been gotten out of that nonentity. “And where is Lychnis?” she asked, as he came in. “She’s with Sir Richard Frew-Gaff and Fulke Arnott, doing sums.” “Queer girl. I missed her after dinner. I thought she was with you.” “She and Ruby were with Quentin after dinner,” the captain innocently said. Lord Sombrewater’s eye was expressionless, like a pheasant’s. The three ladies exchanged glances, glanced at Ruby, and when she glanced up from her book simultaneously glanced back again. There was silence for an hour. “Game and rubber,” said Mrs. Sprot at last. “And bedtime,” added Lady Frew-Gaff. And there was a great pushing back of chairs and shaking of handbags and jingling of coins and picking up of dropped odds and ends. The choleric Chink came in with Bovril and whisky-and-soda, and as he went out again, with a last furious good-night, the ship gave a distinct heave. Then Lychnis came in. “Yes,” she replied to a question, “there’s a wind blowing. Terence is outside sniffing it. He says it’s full of the Peach-blossom People. He says they keep on flicking the tops of the little waves with their pink feet.” “And what did you say to that?” asked her father. “I said no doubt it was true. He looks at the waves a lot, so he ought to know. I told him about my waves.” “Your waves?” “Light waves and that. Calculations about them, in rhyme and blank verse. We had wonderful ones to-night—long flat ones like trains and some like falling rockets, and a series like the rhizome of a bamboo that keeps on putting out a new shoot. Fulke nearly cried because a demonstration of Sir Richard’s was so beautiful.”