She looked up; Oswald Grismer stood on the threshold of the open door. "Come in!" she said gaily. "I’ll give you tea in a few minutes." Grismer came forward, saluted her with easy grace, greeted Stephanie with that amiable ceremony which discloses closer intimacy, turned to Cleland with that wistful cordiality which never seemed entirely confident. "Oswald," said Helen, "there’s a problem play being staged in my bed-room." "Marie Cliff and Harry Belter," explained Stephanie in a low voice. Grismer was visibly astonished. "That’s amusing," he said pleasantly. "Isn’t it?" said Helen. "I don’t know whether I’m pleased. She’s such a little brick! And Harry has lived as he pleased.... Oh, Lord! Men _are_ queer. People sneer at a problem play, but everybody ever born is cast for some typical problem-play part. And sooner or later, well or badly, they play it." "Critics talk rot; why expect more of the public?" inquired Grismer. "And isn’t it funny what a row they make about sex? After all, that’s what the world is composed of, two sexes, with a landscape or marine background. What else is there to write about, Cleland?" The latter laughed: "It merely remains a matter of good taste. You sculptors have more latitude than painters; painters more than we writers. Pathology should be used sparingly in fiction—all sciences, in fact. Like a clove of garlic applied to a salad bowl, a touch of science is sufficient to flavour art; more than that makes it reek. Better cut out the art altogether if the science fascinates you, and be the author of ’works’ instead of mere books." Stephanie, watching Cleland while he was speaking, nodded: "Yes," she said, "one could write fiction about a hospital nurse, but not about nursing. It wouldn’t have any value." Grismer said: "We’re really very limited in the world. We have land and water, sun and moon and stars, two sexes, love and hate to deal with. Everything else is merely a modification of these elemental fixtures.... It becomes tiresome, sometimes." "Oswald! Don’t talk like a silly pessimist," said Stephanie sharply. He laughed in his easy, attractive way and sat gently swinging one long leg, which was crossed over the other. He said: "There is in every living and articulated thing a nerve which, if destroyed, destroys for its possessor a certain area of interest in life. People become pessimists to that extent. "But, where all the nerves converge to form the vital ganglion, a stroke there means extermination." "Apropos of what is this dissertation wished upon us?" asked Stephanie with an uneasy smile. "Did you ever see a paralyzed spider, Stephanie?—alive, breathing, destined to live for weeks, perhaps, and anyway until the wasp’s egg under it hatches and becomes a larva to devour it?