t a woman, he married sanely,
soberly and decorously, for the sake of children. It was so that their
father had married. It was so that John--well, John had been a little
unfortunate. It was so that he, the Doctor----

He stopped short in his reflections, remembering how it was that he had
remained unmarried. Like every other Brodrick he had reserved for
himself the privilege of the unexpected line.

XXXII

Every year, about the middle of August, Brodrick's family dispersed for
the summer holidays. Every year, about the middle of September, its
return was celebrated at a garden-party given by the Levines.

Brodrick's brother-in-law lived with an extreme simplicity in one of
those square white houses in St. John's Wood, houses secluded behind
high, mysterious walls, where you entered, as by secret, through a
narrow door.

The party had streamed through this door, over the flagged path and
through the house, into the small, dark, green garden at the back, a
garden that seemed to guard, like the house, its secret and its mystery.
There, on this yearly festival, you were certain to find all the
Brodricks, packed rather tight among a crowd of Levines and their
collaterals from Fitzjohn's Avenue, a crowd of very dark, very
large-eyed, very curly-haired persons, persons attired with sobriety,
almost with austerity, by way of protest against the notorious excesses
of their race.

And with them there was always, on this occasion, a troop of little boys
and girls, dark, solemn-eyed little boys and girls, with incredibly
curly hair, and strange, unchildlike noses.

Moving restlessly among them, or grouped apart, you came upon friends of
the Brodricks and Levines, and here and there a few journalists,
conspicuously tired young men who toiled nocturnally on the "Morning
Telegraph."

This year it was understood that the party would be brilliant. The young
men turned up in large numbers and endeavoured to look for the occasion
a little less tired than they were. All the great writers on the
"Monthly Review" had been invited and many of them came.

Caro Bickersteth was there; she came early, and Sophy Levine, in a
discreet aside, implored her to give her a hand with the authors.
Authors, Sophy intimated, were too much for her, and there would be a
lot of them. There was Miss Lempriere and Miss Gunning, and Jane
Holland, of course----

"Of course," said Caro, twinkling.

"And Mr. Tanqueray."

At that name Caro r