"Oh, I don't know," laughed Nitocris, as they shook hands. "You see, Mrs van Huysman, _they_ do think it matters a great deal, and, besides, I'm quite sure that they both enjoy it very thoroughly. It's their way of taking recreation, you see, just as a couple of pitmen will try and pound one another to pieces, just for the fun of the thing. It's only a case of intellectual fisticuffs, after all." "Why, certainly," said Brenda, as she rang for tea; "I'm just sure that Poppa never has such a good time as when he thinks he's tearing one of Professor Marmion's theories into little pieces and dancing on them, and I shouldn't wonder if Professor Marmion didn't feel about the same." "I dare say he does," said Nitocris, remembering what had happened in the morning; "it's only one of the thousand unexplained puzzles of human nature. As you know, my father hates fighting in the physical sense with a hatred which is almost fanatical, and yet, when it comes to a battle of wits, he's like a schoolboy in a football match." "It's just another development of the same thing," said Brenda. "Man was born a fighting animal, and I guess he'll remain one till the end of time; and with all our progress in civilisation and science, and all that, the man who doesn't enjoy a fight of some sort isn't of very much account. Now, here's tea, which is just now a more interesting subject. Sit down, and we'll talk about vanities. I'm just perishing to see what Regent Street and Bond Street are like. I don't think I've spent ten dollars in London yet. I'm twenty-two to-morrow, Niti, and my grandfather, who is just about the best grandfather a girl ever had, cabled across to the Napier people, and they've sent round the dandiest six-cylinder, thirty-horse landaulette that you ever saw, even in Central Park, and a driver to match--only I shan't have much use for him, except to look after the automobile. I'll run you round in her after tea, and you can reintroduce me to the stores--I mean shops; I forgot we were in London." Mrs van Huysman, as usual, took a back seat while her daughter dispensed tea, and did most of the talking. She was a lady of moderate proportions, and, unlike a good many American women, she had kept her good looks until very close on fifty. She was full of shrewd common sense, but she had been born in a different generation and in a different grade of life, and therefore her attire inclined rather to magnificence than to elegance, in spite of her daughter's restraining hand and frankly expressed counsel. She had a profound respect for her husband's attainments without in the least understanding them, and she very naturally held an unshakable belief that no quite ordinary woman, as she called herself, had ever been miraculously blessed with such a daughter as she had.