Literary. I'm writing a novel."

"Brothers and sisters?"

"Three sisters, no brother, and a mother."

"Is that all we're to hear about you?" said Helen. She stated that she
was very old--forty last October, and her father had been a solicitor in
the city who had gone bankrupt, for which reason she had never had much
education--they lived in one place after another--but an elder brother
used to lend her books.

"If I were to tell you everything--" she stopped and smiled. "It would
take too long," she concluded. "I married when I was thirty, and I have
two children. My husband is a scholar. And now--it's your turn," she
nodded at Hirst.

"You've left out a great deal," he reproved her. "My name
is St. John Alaric Hirst," he began in a jaunty tone of voice.
"I'm twenty-four years old. I'm the son of the Reverend Sidney
Hirst, vicar of Great Wappyng in Norfolk. Oh, I got scholarships
everywhere--Westminster--King's. I'm now a fellow of King's. Don't it
sound dreary? Parents both alive (alas). Two brothers and one sister.
I'm a very distinguished young man," he added.

"One of the three, or is it five, most distinguished men in England,"
Hewet remarked.

"Quite correct," said Hirst.

"That's all very interesting," said Helen after a pause. "But of course
we've left out the only questions that matter. For instance, are we
Christians?"

"I am not," "I am not," both the young men replied.

"I am," Rachel stated.

"You believe in a personal God?" Hirst demanded, turning round and
fixing her with his eyeglasses.

"I believe--I believe," Rachel stammered, "I believe there are things
we don't know about, and the world might change in a minute and anything
appear."

At this Helen laughed outright. "Nonsense," she said. "You're not a
Christian. You've never thought what you are.--And there are lots of
other questions," she continued, "though perhaps we can't ask them yet."
Although they had talked so freely they were all uncomfortably conscious
that they really knew nothing about each other.

"The important questions," Hewet pondered, "the really interesting ones.
I doubt that one ever does ask them."

Rachel, who was slow to accept the fact that only a very few things can
be said even by people who know each other well, insisted on knowing
what he meant.

"Whether we've ever been in love?" she enquired. "Is that the kind of
question you mean?"

Again Helen laughed at her, benignantly strewing her with handful