“Um,” said Mr. Pithey. “Bertram is a good sensible name for a boy, like my own, and not too common. Better stick to that. So you’ve started your cottages. Well, you remember what I told you. Don’t you think they’re going to pay, because they won’t.” “Oh yes, they’ll pay,” said Ruth. “Why, of course they’ll pay!” There was mischief in her eye. “Now look here,” said Mr. Pithey heavily. “It’s no good talking to a woman; it’s in at one ear and out of the other. But if you’ll walk up to the house with me, I’ll put it down in black and white. The return you’ll get for your money——” “Oh, money!” interrupted Ruth. “I wasn’t thinking of money.” Mr. Pithey heeled over, as it were, like a ship brought up when sailing full before the wind. “If it’s damned rotten sentiment you’re after,” he exclaimed, “well you can take my word for it _that_ doesn’t pay either!” Ruth looked up at him as he stood over her, a very wrathfully indignant immaculate, pale yellow pig indeed. She thought of his millions, and the power they wielded and then of the power they might wield if backed by any imagination. “Mr. Pithey,” she said, and her voice was very low, and it had in it the sound of many waters which had gone over her soul, “I have seen our dead men lie in rows, many hundreds, through the dark night, waiting till the dawn for burial; they did not ask if it paid.” Mr. Pithey shuffled with his big feet in the grass. “That’s different,” he said, but his little sharp eyes fell. “I should have gone myself, but my business was of national importance, as of course you know. Yes, that’s different. That’s different.” He seemed to find satisfaction in the words. He eyed Ruth again with equanimity. “Of course you ladies don’t understand, but you can’t bring sentiment into business.” He puffed himself out. Again the phrase pleased. Ruth rose to her feet. Even to her broad charity he had become oppressively obnoxious. “How much did you offer me for Thorpe?” she asked suddenly. Mr. Pithey’s eyes snapped. “Twenty-five per cent. on your money,” he said, “or I might even go a bit higher as you’re a lady.” Ruth tossed Bertram Aurelius over her shoulder, laughing. “Do you know what has made Thorpe the gem it is?” she asked. “Why, sentiment! Unless you have some to spend on it, it wouldn’t pay you to buy.” She nodded a farewell and left him with a strangled “damn” on his lips. He yearned after Thorpe. As a pleasure farm for himself it left little to be desired. He expressed his feelings to Mrs. Pithey, who, coming along presently in her Rolls-Royce, with the two elder children in their best clothes, picked him out of the dust and took him home to tea. “Why, it must have been her I passed just now!” she exclaimed. “There now, if I didn’t think it was just a common woman, and never bowed!” “A good thing too!” said Mr. Pithey majestically. And he said to Mrs. Pithey all the things he would have said to Miss Seer if she had given him a chance.