"What things? Is there anything worse than what your mother talks about at her meetings? Girls know all about that nowadays, and it is no good pretending we don't." "Talking about them is one thing, coming in contact with them is another. Kühler is a Jew, and he comes from the East End, where they don't have any decent pleasures. He's infernally good-looking in a hurdy-gurdy sort of way. Gawd! Women look at him and off they go." "But he cares for poetry and the Bible and he loves pictures. . . ." "It doesn't seem to make any difference." During this talk he had begun to find Morrison extraordinarily pretty and lovable, and he said tenderly:-- "Won't you take off your hat and let me see your beautiful hair?" She refused, and asked him more about Mendel, and in exasperation at the unintended snub he told her the true story of Hetty Finch, not concealing his own share in it, but implying that Mendel's terrible immorality had corrupted him and led to his downfall. The story was received in silence. At last she said:-- "And what is going to become of Hetty Finch?" "That's the extraordinary part of it," said Mitchell. "She has found someone to marry her." He leaned against the mantelpiece and dropped his head in his hands and groaned. "Gawd!" he said. "If it weren't for you I don't know what would become of me." And he was so moved by his own thoughts that tears trickled down his nose and made dark spots on the whitened hearth. "I can't ask you to marry me," he said mournfully. "I'm unworthy, but I want to be your friend." She made no reply, and he was forced to ask rather lamely:-- "Will you be my friend?" "Of course." "Always?" "How can I promise that?" she said. It was then that he took her to the Paris Café, where, all in a turmoil through her new knowledge of men and women, she hardly knew what she was doing, and gave Mendel the curt nod which had so disgruntled him. * * * * * Every summer the Detmold students went for a picnic, either up the river, or to a Surrey common, or to one of the forests in the vicinity of London. This year Burnham Beeches was chosen. Two charabancs met the party at Slough, and though Mendel tried very hard to sit next to Morrison, he was outmanoeuvred by Mitchell, and had to put up with Clowes. "I wish you wouldn't glare at Mitchell so. You make me quite uncomfortable," said she. "He is telling her lies about me," growled Mendel. "Don't be absurd," protested Clowes. "He is not talking about you at all." She felt rather cross with him because he was spoiling her pleasure, and because she had wanted to sit next someone else, and she added: "People aren't always talking about you, and if anybody does it's the models, and that's your own fault." "How beastly!" he said. "I don't blame them. They haven't any other interest." "I didn't mean that. I meant this country. It is so flat and dull, regular railway scenery. What a place to choose for a picnic!"