'Why do you say it like that?' 'Because I was thinking of a funny story--(he _said_ it was funny)--a Liberal Whip told me the other day. A Radical member went out of the House after his speech in favour of the Women's Bill, and as he came back half an hour later he heard some members talking in the lobby about the astonishing number who were going to vote for the measure. And the Friend of Woman dropped his jaw and clutched the man next him. "My God!" he said, "you don't mean they're going to _give_ it to them!"' 'Sh! Here is Ronald.' Mrs. Freddy's tact brought her smiling to her feet as the figure of her brother-in-law appeared in the doorway. But she turned her back on him and affected absorption in the tableau presented by Jean leaning forward, elbow on knee, chin in hand, gazing steadily in Vida Levering's face. 'I don't want to interrupt you two,' said the hostess, 'but I think you must look at the pictures.' 'Oh, yes, I brought them specially'--Lord Borrodaile deflected his course in order to take up from the table two squares of cardboard tied face to face with tape. 'Bless the man!' Mrs. Freddy contemplated him with smiling affectation of scorn. 'I mean the new photographs of the children. He's thinking of some reproductions Herbert Tunbridge got while he was abroad--pictures of things somebody's unearthed in Sicily or Cyprus.' 'Crete, my dear.' He turned his back on the fond mother and Jean who was already oh-ing with appreciation at the first of a pile of little Saras and Cecils. When he came back to his corner of the sofa he made no motion to undo his packet, but 'Now then!' he said, as he often did on sitting down beside Vida Levering--as though they had been interrupted on the verge of coming to an agreement about something. She, with an instinct of returning the ball, usually tossed at him some scrap of news or a jest, or some small social judgment. This time when he uttered his 'Now then,' with that anticipatory air, she answered instantly--'Yes; something rather odd has been happening. I've been seeing beyond my usual range.' 'Really!' He smiled at her with a mixture of patronage and affection. 'And did you find there was "something new under the sun" after all?' 'Well, perhaps not so new, though it seemed new to me. But something differently looked at. Why do we pretend that all conversion is to some religious dogma--why not to a view of life?' 'Bless my soul! I begin to feel nervous.' 'Do you remember once telling me that I had a thing that was rare in my sex--a sense of humour?' 'I remember often thinking it,' he said handsomely. 'It wasn't the first time I'd heard that. And it was one of the compliments I liked best.' 'We all do. It means we have a sense of proportion--the mental suppleness that is capable of the ironic view; an eye that can look right as well as left.'