Miss Burton looked at him severely. "George, I do not think it is very good taste of you to inflict your grievances upon these gentlemen, who have just come to make an afternoon call. Don't you think you could soothe your nerves better by getting back to your laboratory, or whatever you call it?" Mr. Burton accepted the hint, and rose. He waved a genial hand towards the visitors. "You will excuse me for a few moments. I have a most important experiment on. But I shall be back very shortly: I shall see you again before you leave." The two young men devoutly wished that they might not see him again. The man was a confirmed and innate vulgarian. Both he and his sister, no doubt, felt very sore about their social ostracism, but how different were the methods of expression indulged in by the two. She explained the situation with a proud dignity, hiding her chagrin with a show of indifference. He was exposing his gaping wounds to the public eye with an air of ostentation. "I must ask you to excuse my brother," said Miss Burton when her ebullient relative had left the room. "He has the true Irish temperament, it is impossible for him to conceal his feelings. He would like to go down the High Street, trailing his coat behind him, and inviting the residents to tread upon it, in real Irish fashion, so that he could indulge in a free fight with them." The young men laughed cordially. They felt that a somewhat awkward situation had been saved by her ready tact, her rather humorous explanation. But Murchison, the more level-headed of the two, looked at her very fixedly, as he said, "But you are Irish, too. How is it that you have learned to control your feelings so successfully?" At such a direct question, he would have expected her to flush a little; at any rate, show some slight symptoms of embarrassment. But this remarkably self-possessed girl of twenty or thereabouts was as cool as a cucumber. She laughed her little silvery laugh. "My brother and I are as wide apart as the North and South Poles," she said lightly. "Many people have commented on the fact. Would you like to know the reason?" She directed a rather challenging glance in the direction of Pomfret, whom she rightly judged to be more susceptible to feminine influence than his friend. "I should like to very much," was the subaltern's answer. That eloquent glance had completely subjugated the young man. "Well, listen. My father was a hard-riding, gambling, hard-drinking Irish squire, who squandered his money and left little but debts behind him. My brother takes after him in certain qualities, thank Heaven not his least desirables ones. My mother was an Englishwoman, rather a puritanical sort of woman, who fell in love, perhaps a little injudiciously, and I think wore her life out in the attempt to curb my father's unhappy propensities. I take after my mother. You understand? George is really my half-brother by my father's first wife."