“I’ve got fifteen and sevenpence. How much have you?” “About three pounds ten.” She sighed. “This unromantic taxi man would charge us at least five pounds to take us there.” “We can turn back and fill our pockets at the bank.” “It’s Sunday.” “I never before realized the blight of the British Sabbath.” “So we’re condemned to Fielder’s Park.” “But one of these days we’ll go, you and I together, to John o’ Groats—as far as we can and then——” “And then?” “And then we’ll take a ship and sail and sail until we come to the Fortunate Isles.” “You’ll let Myra come too?” said Olivia, deliciously anxious to keep to the playful side of an inevitable road. “Of course. We’ll find her a husband. The cabin-boy. _Pour mousse un chérubin._” “And when we get to the Fortunate Isles, what should we do there?” “We shall fill our souls with sunlight, so that we could use it when we came back to our work in this dark and threatening modern world.” The girl’s heart leapt at the reply. “I’ll go up to John o’ Groats with you whenever you like,” she said. But the taxi, at that moment drawing up before the detached toy villa, whose “Everdene” painted on the green garden gate proclaimed the home of the Blenkirons, inhibited Triona’s reply. They found within an unbeautiful assemblage of humans inextricably mingled with crumbling cake and sloppy cups of tea and cigarette smoke. Agnes, shining with heat and hospitality, gave them effusive welcome and, extricating her brother from a distant welter, introduced him to the newcomers. He was a flabby-faced young man with a back-thatch of short rufous hair surmounting a bald forehead. By his ears grew little patches of side whiskers. He wore an old unbuttoned Norfolk jacket and a red tie in a soft collar without an under pin. He greeted them with an enveloping clammy hand. “So good of you to come, Miss Gale. So glad to meet you, Mr. Triona. We have heard so much about you. You will find us here all very earnest in our endeavour to find a Solution—for never has human problem been so intricate that a Solution has not been discovered.” “What’s the problem?” asked Olivia. “Why, my dear lady, there’s only one. The Way Out—or, if you have faith—The Way In.” He caught a lean, thin-bearded man by the arm. “Dawkins, let me introduce you to Miss Gale. Mr. Dawkins is our _rapporteur_.” “You haven’t any tea,” said Dawkins rebukingly, as though bidden to a marriage feast she had no wedding garment. “Come with me.” He frayed her a passage through the chattering swarm that over-filled the little bow-windowed sitting-room and provided her with what seemed to be the tepid symbols of the brotherhood. “What did you think of Roger’s article in this week’s _Signal_?” “Who is Roger, and what is _The Signal_?” Olivia asked simply. Dawkins stared at her for a second and then, deliberately turning, wormed his path away.