“I have read----” She broke off suddenly. “But no; I am sure poetry depends very much on what you have been through.” There was a pause. “Mr. Alter, if he heard us, would say we were very young,” John said. Margaret looked back over their conversation and laughed. “Have we been taking ourselves so seriously? Look at my great-grandmother. She is telling us to get along with us into the drawing-room.” There they found Wingfield Alter and Mrs. Fane-Herbert. Hugh came in a moment later. Alter had his back to the door as they entered, a square, broad back, full of determination. When he turned his head there were legible in the deeply lined face, with its high forehead and proudly carried chin, a self-confidence and directness of purpose which made it almost unnoticeable that Alter was a short, ungainly man. He wore a spare moustache and a pointed beard which began so far down his chin that his lips were unobscured by it. He waited for no introduction, but took John’s hands at once, welcoming him as his mother’s son, and looking at him closely. Even at dinner John felt those deep-set eyes turned continually upon him, searching, he supposed, for points of resemblance to his mother. Mrs. Fane-Herbert, tall and slim at the end of the table, was a clever woman and Alter an eager listener. She turned the conversation to the Navy, and for long he was a willing and appreciative pupil. Hugh instructed him with great zest. “How long is it, sir, since you were in a warship?” “It must be four or five years. I have been in Russia since, and have lost touch. I see I must renew my acquaintance. I want to see what I can of the officers produced by the New Scheme--all my friends were _Britannia_ cadets. Your education has been broader, less rigidly specialized than theirs. What is the effect on efficiency?” “There must be a danger,” said Mrs. Fane-Herbert, “of encouraging ideas and tastes, good in themselves, but ill-suited to the naval officer as such.” “I often wonder about that,” Alter answered. “The Service is very exacting, very highly specialized, narrow in a sense. And boys enter it very early, knowing nothing of what they are or what they will become. They enter it in much the same spirit as that in which they choose the career of an engine-driver. Tendencies undreamed of then are bound to develop later--diverse tendencies, probably opposed in a thousand ways to Service requirements. Am I right?” “Every word,” said John, leaning forward a little.