“He is—amazing. One so seldom sees anything approaching physical perfection that it strikes one a sort of blow when one comes upon it suddenly face to face.” “Is he as beautiful as all that?” “The Greeks used to make statues of bodies like his. They often called them gods—but not always. The Creative Intention plainly was that all human beings should be beautiful and he is the expression of it.” Feather was pretending to embroider a pink flower on a bit of gauze and she smiled vaguely. “I don’t know what you mean,” she admitted with no abasement of spirit, “but if ever there was any Intention of that kind it has not been carried out.” Her smile broke into a little laugh as she stuck her needle into her work. “I’m thinking of Henry,” she let drop in addition. “So was I, it happened,” answered Coombe after a second or so of pause. Henry was the next of kin who was—to Coombe’s great objection—his heir presumptive, and was universally admitted to be a repulsive sort of person both physically and morally. He had brought into the world a weakly and rickety framework and had from mere boyhood devoted himself to a life which would have undermined a Hercules. A relative may so easily present the aspect of an unfortunate incident over which one has no control. This was the case with Henry. His character and appearance were such that even his connection with an important heritage was not enough to induce respectable persons to accept him in any form. But if Coombe remained without issue Henry would be the Head of the House. “How is his cough?” inquired Feather. “Frightful. He is an emaciated wreck and he has no physical cause for remaining alive.” Feather made three or four stitches. “Does Mrs. Muir know?” she said. “If Mrs. Muir is conscious of his miserable existence, that is all,” he answered. “She is not the woman to inquire. Of course she cannot help knowing that—when he is done with—her boy takes his place in the line of succession.” “Oh, yes, she’d know that,” put in Feather. It was Coombe who smiled now—very faintly. “You have a mistaken view of her,” he said. “You admire her very much,” Feather bridled. The figure of this big Scotch creature with her “line” and her “splendid grace and harmony” was enough to make one bridle. “She doesn’t admire me,” said Coombe. “She is not proud of me as a connection. She doesn’t really want the position for the boy, in her heart of hearts.” “Doesn’t want it!” Feather’s exclamation was a little jeer only because she would not have dared a big one. “She is Scotch Early Victorian in some things and extremely advanced in others,” he went on. “She has strong ideas of her own as to how he shall be brought up. She’s rather Greek in her feeling for his being as perfect physically and mentally as she can help him to be. She believes things. It was she who said what you did not understand—about the Creative Intention.”