"I'm sorry I couldn't be more," Mrs Ffolliot said contritely; "but you see, mother dear, it's like this, it's just because I was only one I want the children to have as much as possible of each other . . . while they are young . . . I want them to grow up . . ." Mrs Ffolliot sat down on the floor and leant her head against Mrs Grantly's knees so that her face was hidden. "I want them to realise what a lot of other people there are in the world, all with hopes and fears and likes and dislikes and joys and sorrows . . . and that each one of them is only a very little humble atom of a great whole--and that's what they can teach each other--I can't do it--you can't do it--but they can manage it amongst them." Mrs Grantly did not answer; quick as she was in repartee, she had the much rarer gift of sympathetic silence. She laid a kind hand on her daughter's bent head and softly stroked it. The clock struck four, and still Mr Ffolliot sat on in his chair with _Gaston Latour_ unopened, held loosely in his long slender hands. A dignified presence with every attribute that goes to make the scholar and the gentleman; though one who judged of character from external appearance might have misdoubted the thin straight lips, the rather pinched nostrils, the eyes too close together, and above all, the head--high and intellectual, but almost devoid of curve at the back. A clean-cut, ascetic, handsome face, as a rule calm and judicial in its dignified repose. This afternoon, though, the Squire lacks his usual serene poise. His self-confidence has been shaken, and it is his young sons who have disturbed its delicately adjusted equilibrium. He was puzzled. It is a mistake to imagine that selfish and ungrateful people fail to recognise these qualities in others. Not only are they quick to perceive incipient signs of them, but they demand the constant exercise of their opposites in their fellow men. Mr Ffolliot was puzzled. Among the words he used most constantly, both on paper and in conversation, were "fine shades" and "fineness" in its most psychological sense. "Fineness" was a quality he was for ever belauding: a quality that he believed was only to be found in persons of complex character and unusually sensitive organisation. And yet he grudgingly conceded that he had, that afternoon, been confronted by it in two of his own quite ordinary children. What rankled, however, was that Buz, at all events, seemed doubtful whether he, the Squire, possessed it. The dubious and thrice-repeated "you do understand, don't you, father?" rang in his ears. How was it that Buz, the shallow and mercurial, seemed to fear that what was so plain to him might be hidden from his father?