"Yes. It belonged to a Captain Cleland in those remote days." There was a long silence. The delicately fresh odour of grey iris became more apparent—a perfume that, somehow, Cleland associated with Stephanie. Grismer said in a pleasant, listless voice: "You are a happy man, Cleland." "Y-yes." "Here, under the foliage of your forefathers," mused Grismer aloud, "you should rest contented that the honour of an honourable line lies secure in your keeping." Cleland laughed: "I don’t know how honourable they were, but I’ve never heard of any actual criminals among them." "That’s a great deal." He dropped one lean, well-shaped hand on the arm of his chair. The cigarette burned between his pendant fingers, spicing the air with its aromatic scent. "It’s a great deal to have a clean family record," he said again. "It is the greatest thing in the world—the most desirable.... The other makes existence superfluous." "You mean dishonour?" "Yes. The stain spreads. You can’t stop it. It taints the generations that follow. They can’t escape." "That’s nonsense," said Cleland. "Because a man had a crook for a forebear he isn’t a crook himself." "No. But the stain is in his heart and brain." "That’s morbid!" "Maybe.... But, Cleland, there are people whose most intense desire is to be respectable. It is a ruling passion, inherent, unreasoning, vital to their happiness and peace of mind. Did you know that?" "I suppose I can imagine such a person." "Yes. I suppose such a person is not normal. In them, hurt pride is more serious than a wound of the flesh. And pride, mortally wounded, means to them mental and finally physical death." "Such a person is abnormal and predestined to unhappiness," said Cleland impatiently. "Predestined," repeated Grismer in his pleasant, even voice. "Yes, there’s something wrong with them. But they are born so. Nobody knows what a mental hell they endure. Things that others would scarcely notice they shrink from. Their souls are raw, quivering things within them that agonize over a careless slight, that wither under disapproval, that become paralyzed under an affront. "Their fiercest, deepest, most vital desire is to be welcomed, approved, respected. Without kindness they become deformed; and crippled pride does strange, perverse things to their brain and tongue. "There are such people, Cleland.... Predestined ... to suffering and to annihilation.... Weaklings ... all heart and unprotected nerves ... passing their brief lives in desperate and grotesque attempts to conceal what they are.... Superfluous people, undesirable ... foredoomed." He dropped his cigarette upon the drenched grass, whore it glimmered an instant and went out.