"I was just about to light it, Jane. This weather, especially after luncheon, invests one's actions with a certain amount of deliberation." "If you showed as much deliberation about your words, George, as you do about your actions, it would be better for everybody." George's astonishment was such that he let out the match which he had just lit. "Oh, really, Jane, I wasn't conscious of having said anything particular." "It's not what you said now, it's what you said at luncheon. If you don't strike another match and light that cigarette, I shall have to go." George followed his instructions obediently. "At luncheon?" he said meditatively. "Don't seem to remember having said anything particular at luncheon either. While I'm here, I'm always careful to avoid politics." "So long as you follow blindly the foes of your own country, that is just as well. The treacherous and unpatriotic duffers, with whom you have chosen to ally yourself----" "Yes," said George. "You're perfectly right. It's much better to avoid politics. But what did I say at luncheon?" "Ruth was there." "She was. Very charming she looked. I'm proud to be her uncle." "I have the charge of her education, and the formation of her moral character, and I considered what you said to be most unwise. Praise is nearly always bad, and it is specially injudicious to praise a child's beauty to her face." "Oh, that's it, is it? Well, Ruth ain't exactly a child, you know. She's eighteen." "Only just eighteen, and I'm not sure that that does not make it worse. I've always been careful to guard against anything of the kind. I do not wish my niece to grow up vain and self-conscious." "Oh, she's all right," said George feebly. "Far from it. She is wilful, and there is nothing I hate so much as wilfulness. I must have my own way, and I cannot be opposed in my views by you or by Ruth. Also, it is quite untrue that she is beautiful. She is nice-looking enough, but her mouth is certainly a little too large, and she has permitted the sun to ruin her complexion--in spite of my advice. I must request you, George, to abstain from saying anything of the kind again." George refused an invitation to inspect a new fowl-run, and said that he preferred to sit and think over things. Amongst other thoughts, it occurred to him that his niece did not in all probability have much of a time. Where he sat, he could hear faintly the sound of the piano in the drawing-room. It was obviously something of Grieg's, and appallingly difficult. He was glad that he had not got to play it, and was merely an audience. He had chosen the better part. After all, Ruth had her music to occupy her, and she played tennis with the Vicarage girls, and what else could she want? He was just dropping off to sleep when the cessation of the music roused him again. A moment later his niece stood before him.