"Pointed out!" murmured Sir Winterton, raising his brows. Did gentlemen need to have the proper thing pointed out to them? Did they not see it for themselves and do it? Nay, one might look for more than the mere naked proper thing; from a gentleman the handsome thing was to be expected, and that of his own motion. There could, in Sir Winterton's view, be no doubt of what was in this case the handsome thing. Unhappily, there is no subject on which greater divergence of opinion exists than that of the proper thing to be done under given circumstances. Here was Sir Winterton holding one view; Japhet Williams held another, and it is to be feared that a section of the inhabitants of Henstead adopted a third. Sir Winterton's cry was honour, Japhet's was duty; the inhabitants would have differed rather even among themselves as to how to describe their motive; party spirit, curiosity, the zest of a personal question, interest in a promising quarrel, mere mischief, all had a hand in producing the applause which greeted Japhet when he rose the next evening and with absolute imperturbability repeated the same question as nearly as possible in the same words. Sir Winterton's answer was not in the same words, but entirely to the same effect. "I've answered that question once, and I won't answer it again," he said. Then came the tumult, and after that a dull unenthusiastic ending, and the drive off through a grinning crowd, which enjoyed Sir Winterton's fury and added to it by a few hateful cries of "Where's Susy Sinnett?" From the outskirts of the town till his own gates were reached Sir Winterton did not speak to his wife. Then he turned to her and said very courteously but most decisively, "Marion dear, you will oblige me by not accompanying me to any more meetings at present and by not visiting the town just now. I don't choose to expose you to any more such scenes. I can't teach these fellows to respect a lady's presence, but I can protect my wife by ensuring her absence." He looked very chivalrous and very handsome as he made this little speech. But his wife's heart sank; such an attitude could mean nothing but defeat. "Can't you help us?" she implored of the Dean, when she had got him alone and told him of this new development of her husband's pride or temper. It was evident that Japhet Williams meant, as he had said, to go on putting his plain question till he got a plain answer, and so long as he put his question, Lady Mildmay was not to be present. How soon would Henstead understand that the gentleman who sought to be its member openly declared that he did not consider it a fit place for his wife to enter? "Something must really be done," said the Dean nervously. "At all hazards." They both knew that "at all hazards" meant in spite of the prohibition and in face of the wrath of Sir Winterton.