Heath began to look rather uncomfortable, and slightly self-conscious. "No," he said quickly. He paused, then as if with a decided effort he added: "I think the training a student gets at the Royal College is splendid." "Of course it is," said Max Elliot, heartily. Mrs. Shiffney shook her shoulders. "I'm sure it's quite perfect," she said, in her rather deep voice, gazing at the young composer with eyes in which a light satire twinkled. "Don't think I'm criticizing it. Only I'm so dreadfully un-English, and I think English musicians get rather into a groove. The Hallelujah bow-wow, you know!" At this point in the conversation Charmian tranquilly interposed. "Mr. Heath," she said, slightly protruding her chin, "when you've done with my only mother"--Mrs. Shiffney's lips tightened ever so little--"I want you to be very nice to me." "Please tell me," said Heath, with the almost anxious eagerness that seemed to be characteristic of him. Mrs. Mansfield fixed her blazing eyes on her daughter, slightly drawing down her gray eyebrows. "Well, it's rather a secret." Charmian glanced round at the others, then she added: "It's about the Nutcracker." "The Nutcracker!" Heath puckered up his forehead. "Yes." She moved a little, and looked at the chair not far from the fire on which she had sat when first she came into the room. "I care rather for boxing. Now"--she went slowly toward the chair, followed by Heath, "what I want to know, and what you can tell me, is this"--she sat down, and leaned her chin on her upturned palm--"on _present_ form do you believe the Nutcracker is up to Conky Ja-ky Joe?" As Claude Heath sat down to reply to this question, Mrs. Shiffney said: "Conky Jarky Joe! I thought I was _dans le mouvement_ up to my dog-collar, but I know nothing about the phenomenon. Where does it belong to?" "Wonderland," said Elliot, in a gravely romantic voice. "That's the land I've never seen, although I've had the yacht for so many years." "Nor I!" said Paul Lane. "I don't believe it exists, or we must have been there. We have both been everywhere." "Tell the poor things about it," said Mrs. Mansfield. "Then Adelaide can get up steam on _The Wanderer_ and realize her dreams." "But Mr. Elliot told me he met you there, and I remember distinctly his saying the fight was on between those two pets of the ring," said Charmian plaintively, after a certain amount of negation from Claude Heath. "Yes, but I'm sure he didn't tell you I was an authority on boxing form." "You aren't?" "No, indeed!" "But you want to be?" "I shouldn't mind. But it isn't my chief aim in life." Charmian was silent. She leaned back, taking her chin from her hand, and at last said gravely: "It isn't _that_, then?" "That--what?" exclaimed Heath, looking at her and away from her. "That you want. It's something else. Because you know you want a very, very great deal of something." "Oh, a good many of us do, I suppose."