Mr. Fothersley paused and smiled, well pleased with the turning of his phrases. Also he felt his advice was good. Ruth acquiesced with becoming humility, aware only of a little running commentary which conveyed nothing to her. Her mind was entirely absorbed with the fact that Larry had accompanied the small procession which had so swiftly crossed their line of vision and disappeared—Larry, who kept children severely in their place as became a dignified gentleman of a certain age, and on whom not even Selina’s wiliest enticement produced the smallest effect. “No good ever comes of moving people out of their natural surroundings,” continued Mr. Fothersley, holding on his way with complete satisfaction. “All men cannot be equal, and it only makes them discontented with the state of life in which it has pleased God to place them. Personally I believe also they are quite unable to appreciate better conditions. Why, when——” And here, to the little man’s astonishment, Ruth suddenly, and very vividly, turned on him, shaking a warning finger in front of his startled nose. “Mr. Fothersley, if you tell me that old story about the chickens in the bathroom, I warn you I am quite unable to bear it. I shall hold forth, and either make you very cross with me or bore you to death. I have lived amongst the very poor, and between your view of them and mine there is a great gulf fixed. I know what you cannot know—their sufferings, their endurance, their patience. I would have every child in London down here if I could—so there! And they may love their squalor and filth, as people here have said to me. It is all the home they have ever known. It is the great indictment against our civilization.” Then she stopped and suddenly smiled at him, it was a smile that barred offence. “There, you see! Don’t start me off, whatever you do!” Mr. Fothersley smiled back. “My dear lady, I admire your kindness of heart. It is your lack of any sense of proportion——” It was at this moment that Mr. Pithey appeared, magnificent in a new tweed knickerbocker suit of a tawny hue, with immaculate gaiters, brown boots and gloves; a cap to match the suit, upon his head; the inevitable cigar in his mouth; looking incongruous enough, between the wild rose and honeysuckle hedges. To discover a couple of anything like marriageable age alone together, in what he called “the lanes,” suggested one thing and one thing only to Mr. Pithey’s mind. His manner assumed a terrible geniality. “Now don’t let me disturb you,” he said, waving a large newly gloved hand. “Just a word with this lady, and I’m off.” He perpetrated a wink that caused Mr. Fothersley to shut his eyes. “Two’s company and three’s none, eh?” Mr. Fothersley opened his eyes and endeavoured to stare him down with concentrated rage and disgust. But Mr. Pithey held on his way, undisturbed.