They were walking back to the tennis lawn by this time. "Yes, that's what Worthing meant by the human side," said Bradby. "I know he thinks a lot about that, and we have talked about it. It isn't giving them charity; they don't want that; or they ought not to want it. It's feeling that you're all the same flesh and blood. If there has been anything wrong with the system, that's what has kept it together all these years." Richard Mansergh and Beatrix did not talk about the system when they presently betook themselves for a stroll in the evening sunlight, before he mounted his horse to ride home. He had, in truth, a little difficulty in persuading her to take it with him, for his admiration of her had by this time reached the point at which it demanded expression, and expression in its turn was apt to demand answers of a kind which she was not ready to give. But at this time she rather prided herself upon her total immunity from the softer passions, and gained some satisfaction in fencing with them when they were obtruded on her notice. It was only a question of whether or no she was in the mood to exercise her wits that made her accept or decline these contests, and she had only hung back a little because her late activities had rather tired her. She was enough to turn the head of any man, with her sweet flower-like face, whose mischievous eyes only made it more bewitching. She was only nineteen, and her slender form had hardly yet filled out to womanhood, but showed delicious soft curves of neck and shoulder. She wore a short white skirt and a white silk blouse, all very workmanlike for her play, but most femininely becoming. A wide-brimmed hat, which she caught up from the seat beside her, slightly altered the note of her clothes. She seemed to the young man more desirable thus, walking by his side, than in the activities of the game, although he had admired her grace and skill too while she had been playing. Perhaps the hat was put on instinctively to soften the impressions of athleticism; but a wide hat brim also conceals eyes and mouth from one who is considerably taller, when it is to be desired that they shall be concealed. Richard Mansergh was some years older than she--a Commander in His Majesty's Navy, and a good man at his job, a born lover of the sea, but just at present anxious to spend as much time away from it as rules and duties stretched to their utmost limit would allow. He was taller than most sailors, and rather good-looking or rather ugly according to whether regularity of feature or perfection of limb should appeal to the observer. In form he was something of an Adonis, and the shape of the head and the way it was set on his neck hardly prepared one for a face that was not that of an Adonis, though it showed strength and a cleanness that had its attraction too.