ragrance of old lace and of that peculiar, almost unseizable odour
that uncut turquoises have, Mrs. Berridge appeared.

"What is the matter, Adrian?" she asked quickly. She glanced sideways
into the Queen Anne mirror, her hand fluttering, like a pale moth, to
her hair, which she always wore braided in a fashion she had derived
from Pollaiuolo's St. Ursula.

"Nothing, Jacynth--nothing," he answered with a lightness that carried
no conviction; and he made behind his back a gesture to frighten away
the robin.

"Amber isn't unwell, is he?" She came quickly to the cage. Amber
executed for her a roulade of great sweetness. His voice had not
perhaps the fullness for which it had been noted in earlier years;
but the art with which he managed it was as exquisite as ever. It was
clear to his audience that the veteran artist was hale and hearty.

But Jacynth, relieved on one point, had a misgiving on another. "This
groundsel doesn't look very fresh, does it?" she murmured, withdrawing
the sprig from the bars. She rang the bell, and when the servant came
in answer to it said, "Oh Jenny, will you please bring up another
piece of groundsel for Master Amber? I don't think this one is quite
fresh."

This formal way of naming the canary to the servants always jarred on
her principles and on those of her husband. They tried to regard their
servants as essentially equals of themselves, and lately had given
Jenny strict orders to leave off calling them "Sir" and "Ma'am," and
to call them simply "Adrian" and "Jacynth." But Jenny, after one or
two efforts that ended in faint giggles, had reverted to the crude
old nomenclature--as much to the relief as to the mortification of the
Berridges. They did, it is true, discuss the possibility of redressing
the balance by calling the parlourmaid "Miss." But, when it came to
the point, their lips refused this office. And conversely their lips
persisted in the social prefix to the bird's name.

Somehow that anomaly seemed to them symbolic of their lives. Both of
them yearned so wistfully to live always in accordance to the nature
of things. And this, they felt, ought surely to be the line of least
resistance. In the immense difficulties it presented, and in their
constant failures to surmount these difficulties, they often wondered
whether the nature of things might not be, after all, something other
than what they thought it. Again and again it seemed to be in as
direct conflict with duty as wi