When Crane came out of his front gate that morning he found his neighbour Vernon-Smith standing outside, between the spreading laburnum and the lamp-post, talking to a young lady, a distant cousin of his family. This girl was an art student on her own--a little too much on her own for the standards of Heatherbrae, and, therefore (some would infer), yet further beyond those of White Lodge. Her brown hair was bobbed, and the Colonel did not admire bobbed hair. On the other hand, she had a rather attractive face, with honest brown eyes a little too wide apart, which diminished the impression of beauty but increased the impression of honesty. She also had a very fresh and unaffected voice, and the Colonel had often heard it calling out scores at tennis on the other side of the garden wall. In some vague sort of way it made him feel old; at least, he was not sure whether he felt older than he was, or younger than he ought to be. It was not until they met under the lamp-post that he knew her name was Audrey Smith; and he was faintly thankful for the single monosyllable. Mr. Vernon-Smith presented her, and very nearly said: “May I introduce my cabbage?” instead of “my cousin.” The Colonel, with unaffected dullness, said it was a fine day; and his neighbour, rallying from his last narrow escape, continued the talk with animation. His manner, as when he poked his big nose and beady black eyes into local meetings and committees, was at once hesitating and emphatic. “This young lady is going in for Art,” he said; “a poor look-out, isn’t it? I expect we shall see her drawing in chalk on the paving-stones and expecting us to throw a penny into the--into a tray, or something.” Here he dodged another danger. “But, of course, she thinks she is going to be an R.A.” “I hope not,” said the young woman hotly. “Pavement artists are much more honest than most of the R.A.’s.” “I wish those friends of yours didn’t give you such revolutionary ideas,” said Mr. Vernon-Smith. “My cousin knows the most dreadful cranks, vegetarians and--and Socialists.” He chanced it, feeling that vegetarians were not quite the same as vegetables; and he felt sure the Colonel would share his horror of Socialists. “People who want us to be equal, and all that. What I say is--we’re not equal and we never can be. As I always say to Audrey--if all the property were divided to-morrow, it would go back into the same hands. It’s a law of nature, and if a man thinks he can get round a law of nature, why, he’s talking through his--I mean, he’s as mad as a----” Recoiling from the omnipresent image, he groped madly in his mind for the alternative of a March hare. But before he could find it, the girl had cut in and completed his sentence. She smiled serenely, and said in her clear and ringing tones: “As mad as Colonel Crane’s hatter.”