“And we are going to send you to London or Paris or Rome, Martin,” she continued. “And we don’t quite know which. Tell me, is your father naturally solemn, or is his solemnity beautifully assumed. I don’t think any one could really be as solemn as he appears to be. He sat next me at dinner last night and was quite fascinating. I shall have seven candlesticks on my dressing-table for the future, and he extremely reserved. Dear me, I suppose it would have been better not to have said that. But really his attitude about you is ridiculous. Do imitate him. I am sure you can.” The corners of Martin’s mouth quivered slightly. “I think I won’t,” he said. “You mean you can.” “I think, perhaps, I could,” said Martin, guardedly. “Ah, do. Imitate our conversation last night about matters of high-and low-church. Wasn’t it dreadful? I mixed them up, and I don’t know which is which now. Why will Suez Canal always leap about in garden-beds when there is the whole lawn? Naughty! Martin, we have been talking a great deal about you. I am rather bored with you. I stop here over Sunday, and I shall go to church if your father preaches. I think that will give me more influence with him. He said he would very likely come over to tea to-day. I shall never forgive him if he does not, because I want to talk to him about you. We are not going to let you blush unseen any more, and waste your sweetness on the parsonage air. You’ve got to go and work. Men must work, though I never saw the slightest need for women to weep. I haven’t wept for years, except the other night at the ‘Götterdämmerung.’ What a charming picture of domestic life, Martin reading Greek history at the table and Mrs. Martin sobbing violently in the corner! Yes. How I run on! I suppose you really ought to go to Germany and eat cherry jam with your chicken.” “How horrible!” said Stella. “Must one take it?” “If you want to enter into the essential Teutonic spirit you must. You might as well hope to feel like an Anglo-Saxon without being always in a rage or playing violent games as try to be German without jam. How I hate women who play games! They are nearly as odious as men who don’t. Let us go indoors, and Martin shall play to us till tea-time. Afterwards he shall play till dinner-time.” Lady Sunningdale surged slowly to her feet and looked helplessly about. “Where are the dogs?” she said. “It is too tiresome. They are sure to stray into the woods, and Flints’s horrid pheasants will peck them. My darlings! Ah, there they are amid what was once begonias. It looks more like a battlefield now. How naughty! Come at once, all of you!”