It was not a wise speech, because it implied that he was capable of being worried, of being disturbed in the effort of absorption necessary for the examination. He laughed a little harshly. "Well, you see the result!" He had written to tell her of the disastrous incident and that failure was a certainty; a sort of shame had made him recoil from telling her to her face; it was easier to be casual in writing than in talking; the letter had at any rate tempered for both of them the shock of communication. Now, he was out of humour with her because he had played the ass with an ass of an examiner--not because she was directly or indirectly responsible for his doing so; simply because he had done so. She was the woman. It was true that she in part was indirectly responsible for the calamity, but he did not believe it, and anyhow would never have admitted it. "Oh! George! What a shame it was!" As usual, not a trace of reproach from her: an absolute conviction that he was entirely blameless. "What shall you do? You'll have to sit again." "Sit again? Me?" he exclaimed haughtily. "I never shall! I've done with exams." He meant it. "But--shall you give up architecture, then?" "Certainly not! My dear girl, what are you thinking of? Of course I shan't give up architecture. But you needn't pass any exams, to be an architect. Anybody can call himself an architect, and be an architect, without passing exams. Exams. are optional. That's what makes old Enwright so cross with our beautiful profession." He laughed again harshly. All the time, beneath his quite genuine defiance, he was thinking what an idiot he had been to cheek the examiner, and how staggeringly simple it was to ruin years of industry by one impulsive moment's folly, and how iniquitous was a world in which such injustice could be. Marguerite was puzzled. In her ignorance she had imagined that professions were inseparably connected with examinations. However, she had to find faith to accept his dictum, and she found it. "Now about this afternoon," he said. "I vote we take a steamboat down the river. I've made up my mind I must have a look at Greenwich again from the water. And we both need a blow." "But won't it take a long time?" she mildly objected. He turned on her violently, and spoke as he had never spoken: "What if it does?" He knew that she was thinking of her infernal father, and he would not have it. He remembered all that Agg had said. Assuredly Agg had shown nerve, too much nerve, to tackle him in the way she did, and the more he reflected upon Agg's interference the more he resented it as impertinent. Still, Agg had happened to talk sense. "Oh, nothing!" Marguerite agreed quickly, fearfully. "I should like to go. I've never been. Do we go to Chelsea Pier? Down Fernshaw Road will be the nearest."