"I'll tell you why she was marrying Hugh. It was for two or three reasons, every one of them to her credit. Any one who knows her and doesn't see that must be an idiot. She was marrying him, first, because he was kind to her. None of the rest of us was, unless it was Mrs. Brokenshire; and she was afraid to show it for fear you'd jump on her, father. The rest of us have treated Alix Adare like brutes. I know I have." "Oh no!" I protested, though I could scarcely make myself audible. "But Hugh was nice to her. He was nice to her from the start. And she couldn't forget it. No nice girl would. When he asked her to marry him she felt she had to. And then, when he put up his great big bluff of earning a living--" "It wasn't a bluff," Hugh contradicted, his face still buried in his hands. "Well, perhaps it wasn't," she admitted, imperturbably. "If you, father, hadn't driven him to it with your heroics--" "If you call it heroics that I should express my will--" "Oh your will! You seem to think that no one's got a will but you. Here we are, all grown up, two of us married, and you still try to keep us as if we were five years old. We're sick of it, and it's time some of us spoke. Jack's afraid to, and Mildred's too good; so it's up to me to say what I think." Mr. Brokenshire's first shock having passed, he got back something of his lordly manner, into which he threw an infusion of the misunderstood. "And you've said it sufficiently. When my children turn against me--" "Nonsense, father! Your children don't do anything of the sort. We're perfect sheep. You drive us wherever you like. But, however much we can stand ourselves, we can't help kicking when you attack some one who doesn't quite belong to us and who's a great deal better than we are." Mrs. Billing crowed again: "Brava, Ethel! Never supposed you had the pluck." Ethel turned her attention to the other side of her corsage. "Oh, it isn't a question of pluck; it's one of exasperation. Injustice after a while gets on one's nerves. I've had a better chance of knowing Alix Adare than any one; and you can take it from me that, when it comes to a question of breeding, she's the genuine pearl and we're only imitations--all except Mildred." Both of Mr. Brokenshire's handsome hands went up together. He took a step forward as if to save Mrs. Rossiter from a danger. "My daughter!" The pale-rose heap on the other side of the room raised its dainty head. "It's true, Howard; it's true! Please believe it!" Ethel went on in her easy way: "If Alix Adare has made any mistake it's been in ignoring her own wishes--I may say her own heart--in order to be true to us. The Lord knows she can't have respected us much, or failed to see that, judged by her standards, we're as common as grass when you compare it to orchids. But because she is an orchid she couldn't do anything but want to give us back better than she ever got from us; and so--" "Oh no; it wasn't that!" I tried to interpose.