“Ah, you don’t expect me to share that view,” he said. “Sin is sin whether you are twenty or sixty. But Martin, as far as I know, has not been----“ “Playing about,” said Lord Flintshire, with the amiable desire to find a periphrasis. But it did not please his brother. “I can’t discuss things with you in that spirit,” he said. “However, that point is really alien. I have no reason to suspect Martin of such things. But what I deplore is his general slackness. It is to the mind like low physical health to the body: it predisposes to all diseases. I had to speak to him severely about his failure at Cambridge this morning,--too severely perhaps,--and this evening again he has distressed me very much.” “What has he done?” asked Rupert. “Well, you will think it very insignificant, no doubt, but to me it appears most significant of his general state. He was playing croquet with Helen and I heard him say to her, ‘Well, of all the devilish things to do.’ Now, when we were boys, Rupert, we didn’t say that sort of thing at all, and we couldn’t have said it to our sisters.” Lord Flintshire felt some kindly amusement at this. Sidney was such a dear fellow. “But it is some years since we were boys,” said he at length, “and rightly or wrongly the world has begun to take things more--how shall I say it--to ride life on the snaffle instead of the curb. What else has Martin done?” “He has brought into the house ‘The Mill on the Floss.’” Rupert’s admirable courtesy enabled him not to smile. “Have you read the book?” he asked. “No; but I will not have a book of that author in the house. I said so only the other day. Martin must have known it. For all I know, he has given it to his sister to read.” “I hope so,” said Lord Flintshire, quietly. “Because it is a very beautiful book. Of course his disobedience to your wishes is a different point, and to my mind a more serious one. But am I to understand that you are consulting me as to what general line you should take with Martin, what policy you should pursue?” “Yes, I am very much puzzled, and I cannot seem to get any guidance about it. It does no good, I am afraid, to pull the poor lad up first here and then there thirty times a day. And it appears to do no good either to talk to him on the general principles of earnestness and industry. But I do so want him to grasp them. All the faults I see in him spring from slackness. He will not think. He did not think what the word he used to his sister means. He never thinks how just a little carelessness about his work repeated and again repeated must lead to a habit of idleness. I am most deeply thankful that our father was strict with us, Rupert. He made industry a habit with one.” Rupert laughed. “A habit from which I have succeeded in freeing myself,” he said. “But Martin is not slack about everything. He is not slack about music.”