"I think," said Mr. Trupp, sententious and dour, "the only sensible thing he ever did in his life was to marry you." She eyed him shrewdly, sweetly. Then the hard young woman softened, and her face became beautiful, the lovely colour deepening. She was still wearing the blue over-all in which he had first seen her. "You see me how I am," she said. "I can guess," answered Mr. Trupp. "Will you see me through?" "With pleasure." "I don't want no one else, only you. Mr. Pigott--the schoolmaster--told me of you." Mr. Trupp nodded. "He's chapel too," he said. Her eyes became ironical. "Yes," she answered. "He's a good man though. You'll be church, I suppose. Manor-house always is." Mr. Trupp shook his head forcibly. "I'm an agnostic," he replied. The word, recently coined by Huxley, was on the lips of all the young men of Science of the day. "That's a kind of honest heathen," he added, seeing she did not understand. She nodded at him with a gleam of almost merry malice. "Hope for the best and fear the worst sort," she said. "I know em." Then she returned to her subject, and her face became grave and sweet again. "I'm due in April," she said. "That's the right time," he answered. "All children should be born in the spring. Then they're greeted with a song--because Nature wants em; and they've got the summer before them to get established in. I'll come and look you up in a day or two." "And Ned?" "He's all right. Keep him in bed. I'll send him round some medicine to ease the pain." She eyed him shrewdly. "I didn't mean that. I meant the big thing. What chance has he?" Mr. Trupp buttoned himself up. "He's honest with himself. That's the great thing. For the rest it depends mostly on you. You may pull him up. He's young. Is he ambitious?" She shook her head. "What about his writing?" "_The Basis of Animalism_," said Mrs. Caspar thoughtfully. "That's the essay that got him the Fellowship at King's--only he gave it up after a year. Too drudgeryfied. See where it is," confidentially, "he's got the brains, Ned has. The teachers at Cambridge thought no end of him. I've seen their letters. _You can do what you like_,--the Head Teacher wrote. _Question is--Do you like_? And that's where it is with him. There's no stay in Ned. He'll write away one day, and then drop it for a month. Then he'll paint a bit; and after that a bit of poetry. _But he don't go at it_. He don't understand work. That sort don't," with scorn. "They've no need. A man works when he's got to--and not before. Dad worked. He was a tobacconist at Ealing in a small way. Cleared three pound a week if he kept at it steady and went under if he didn't. Why should a man work when he's only got to open his mouth and the pocket-money'll drop in. 'Tain't in Nature." Mr. Trupp nodded quiet approval. "_Must's_ the only word that matters," he said. "_Must's_ the man. He's the boy to kill your _can't_." The woman followed him to the door.