"Oh, no, no. Very old family. Wonderful old house down in Devonshire or Dorset--I wish I could remember just where it is. Anyway, it seems that the eldest brother clung on to this like anything. Of course, he would." "Of course," number two agreed. "But Johnnie, who's hard as flint, insisted on breaking the entail in his own favor, and now I hear he's practically turned the whole family into the street, including James' boy, who in the ordinary course of events would have inherited." "Did Eleanor Cartright tell your friend this?" asked number two. "Oh no, I've heard that from lots of people. It seems that old Mrs. Touchwood died of grief over the way Johnnie carried on. It's really a very grim story when you hear the details; unfortunately, I can't remember all of them. My memory's getting awfully bad nowadays." Number two muttered an expression of sympathy, and the other continued: "But one detail I do remember is that another brother--" "It's a large family, then?" "Oh, very large. As I was saying, the old lady was terribly upset not only about breaking the entail, but also over her youngest son, who had some incurable disease. It seems that he was forced by Johnnie to go out to the Gold Coast--I think it was--in order to see about some money that Johnnie had invested in rubber or something. As I say, I can't remember the exact details. However, cherchez la femme, I needn't add the reasons for all this." "A woman?" "Exactly," said number one. "Some people say it's a married woman, and others say it's a young girl of sixteen. Anyway, Johnnie's completely lost his head over her, and they tell me...." The two members put their heads together so that John could not hear what was said: but it must have been pretty bad, because when they put them apart again number two was clicking his tongue in shocked amazement. "By Jove, that will cause a terrific scandal, eh?" John decided he had heard enough. Assuming an expression of intense superiority, the sort of expression a man might assume who was standing on the top of Mount Everest, he rose from his chair, eyed the two gossips with disdain, and strode out of the smoking-room. Just as he reached the door, he heard number one exclaim: "Hulloa, see who that was? That was old Percy Mortimer." "Oh, of course," said number two, as sapiently as ever, "I didn't recognize him for a moment. He's beginning to show his age, eh?" On the way back to Hampstead John tried to assure himself that the conversation he had just overheard did not represent anything more important than the vaporings of an exceptionally idiotic pair of men about town; but the more he meditated upon the tales about himself evidently now in general circulation, the more he was appalled at the recklessness of calumny.