n her
way"--thus unconsciously endorsing Kate's verdict--"she has never been
used to the sort of life she will have to lead down here. To tell the
truth--I know it's safe with you, Jim--she was our typist in the office
before her marriage."

"I see. And Rose fell in love with her?"

"Y ... yes." Even to Herrick, Barry could not give away the secret of
Owen's proposal. "Anyway, he married her, and brought her here; and
to-day I was witness to a curious little scene in her house."

"I'm all attention, Barry."

"Well, Rose is away for the day, and Mrs. Rose invited a girl-cousin
down for the afternoon; and to do honour to her, I imagine, she had
provided a sumptuous tea, including shrimps and one of those wobbly
white things that you get at lunch."

"I see. Well?"

"Well, we--Mrs. Anstey, Olive and I--chose to pay a call to-day; and
when, after a little hesitation, Mrs. Rose asked us to have some tea, we
were taken into the dining-room, where these festal delicacies were laid
out."

"And then?"

"Well, it would have been all right--Mrs. Anstey is a dear, and Olive of
course is a ripper--and we'd have had a very jolly little party, but
unfortunately in the middle of it who should arrive but Lady Martin and
that terrible daughter of hers."

"Lady Martin of soap fame?"

"The same. Well, you know what an utter snob the woman is. In two
minutes she had Toni--Mrs. Rose--reduced to a jelly--simply by sneering
at everything."

"Including the--shrimps?"

"Yes. You know shrimps are--well--a bit _vulgar_, aren't they?"

For a second there was silence. Then Herrick stretched out his hand for
his pipe and spoke slowly in the intervals of filling the bowl.

"There was once, if my memory serves me rightly, an Apostle of the name
of Peter who chose to consider some of the creatures made by his own
Maker in the light of vulgarians; and a sheetful of specimens descended
on Peter's head to warn him against the folly of finding any of God's
creations common or unclean. Of course we've no proof that shrimps were
included----"

"I say, Jim, don't rag!" Barry threw away his cigarette rather
impatiently. "I'm in earnest--oh, I know it sounds beastly snobbish, but
still, shrimps at tea----"

"Are unusual, though really, if you try them, first-rate." Herrick had
filled his pipe, and now took up the match-box. "Seriously, Barry, I
know what you mean. So long as we have false standards of gentility I
suppose the sight of a shri