Standing there huddled with his brother in the narrow lobby that seemed all coats and umbrellas, René remembered with a horrible vividness his brother coming to his bed and telling him how his father and mother were married on such a day and how, five months later, he, George, was born. And he remembered how he burst into tears, and when George asked him what he was howling for, he had said: "They didn't want you," a view of the matter to which George had remained insensible. He saw now that the revelation had broken the young intimacy that had always been between them. He said: "Mother's got out her best center for you." "Good old mother!" replied George. Then he raised his voice and bawled: "Elsie!" "Coming!" She came running downstairs. George caught and kissed her, and as they went along the passage René wondered how it could be possible for one extra person to make the house seem overfull. It was certainly a party. Mrs. Fourmy set the note, a ceremonious expansiveness in opening up the family to its new member. René's achievements were paraded, and the letter written by his headmaster, which had finally decided the family that he was too good for commerce, was produced and read aloud. George's virtues as a son were extolled and punctuated with his protest: "I say, mother, draw it mild." And Elsie's rather too fervent: "Of course I know I'm _very_ lucky." They played bridge and René lost fourpence, because he played with his mother, who never could remember to suit her declarations to her score, or to return her partner's lead, and had no other notion of play than to make her aces while she could. Elsie talked of her family, especially of a rich uncle she had who kept a timber yard and of a cousin who was a Wesleyan minister. Of her own immediate relations she spoke affectionately but little. Altogether she was so anxious to please that René forgot his first distasteful impression and set himself to make her laugh. She was grateful to him for that. The evening would not have been a success for her without abundant laughter, and George's jokes were just a little heavy. Also she seemed to be slightly afraid of him, as though in all her responses to him were a small risk, rather more, at any rate, than she could always venture to take. She warmed to René, therefore, and between them they kept things lively. In a silence while George was dealing--for he took his bridge very seriously--René hummed a bar or two of a piece called _Blumenlied_, which he had been taught to play as a boy when he worked off the set of music lessons George had begun and relinquished. "Oh, _Blumenlied!_" cried Elsie; "I adore that," and she took up the air. "You've got a pretty voice," said René. "Have I? I do sing sometimes." "Sings?" said George. "I should think so. The family's a concert party. Everything from the human voice to a piccolo."