Mr. Hurst had been taking tea with Aggie one market-day. The others were all out, and he had the field to himself. She always remembered just how he looked when he did it. He was standing on the white mohair rag in the drawing-room, and was running his fingers through his hair for the third time. He had been telling her how he had first taken up sheep-farming in Australia, how he'd been a farm-hand before that in California, how he'd always set his mind on that one thing--sheep-farming--because he had been born and bred in the Cotswolds. Aggie's dark-blue eyes were fixed on him, serious and intent. That flattered him, and the gods, for his undoing, dowered him with a disastrous fluency. He had a way of thrusting out his jaw when he talked, and Aggie noted the singular determination of his chin. It was so powerful as to be almost brutal. (The same could certainly not be said of Mr. Gatty's.) Then, in the light of his reminiscences, a dreadful thought came to her. "John," she said, suddenly, "did you ever kill a pig?" [Illustration: "'John,' she said, suddenly, 'did you ever kill a pig?'"] He answered, absently, as was his way when directly addressed. "A pig? Yes, I've killed one or two in California." She drew back in her chair; but, as she still gazed at him, he went on, well pleased: "I can't tell you much about California. It was in Australia I learned sheep-farming." "So, of course," said Aggie, frigidly, "you killed sheep, too?" "For our own consumption--yes." He said it a little haughtily. He wished her to understand the difference between a grazier and a butcher. "And lambs? Little lambs?" "Well, yes. I'm afraid the little lambs had to go, too, sometimes." "How could you? How could you?" "How could I? Well, you see, I just had to. I couldn't shirk when the other fellows didn't. In time you get not to mind." "Not to mind?" "Well, I never exactly enjoyed doing it." "No. But you did it. And you didn't mind." She saw him steeped in butcheries, in the blood of little lambs, and her tender heart revolted against him. She tried to persuade herself that it was the lambs she minded most; but it was the pig she minded. There was something so low about killing a pig. It seemed to mark him. And it was marked, stained abominably, that he went from her presence. He said to himself: "I've dished myself now with my silly jabber. Damn those lambs!" Young Arthur Gatty, winged by some divine intuition, called at the Laurels the next afternoon. The gods were good to young Arthur, they breathed upon him the spirit of refinement and an indestructible gentleness that day. There was no jarring note in him. He rang all golden to Aggie's testing touch.