he could not see
his face, from where she sat--the table was a long one with oval
ends--but she, too, had seen the flash from Zara which had caused Jimmy
Danvers to exclaim: "Jehoshaphat!"

The host soon turned back from duty to pleasure, leaving Lady Coltshurst
to Lord Charles Montfitchet. The conversation turned upon types.

Types were not things of chance, Francis Markrute affirmed; if one could
look back far enough there was always a reason for them.

"People are so extremely unthinking about such a number of interesting
things, Lady Ethelrida," he said, "their speculative faculties seem only
to be able to roam into cut and dried channels. We have had great
scientists like Darwin investigating our origin, and among the Germans
there are several who study the atavism of races, but in general even
educated people are perfectly ignorant upon the subject, and they expect
little Tommy Jones and Katie Robinson, or Jacques Dubois and Marie
Blanc, to have the same instincts as your cousin, Lord Tancred, and you,
for instance. Whatever individual you are dealing with, you should
endeavor to understand his original group. In moments of great
excitement when all acquired control is in abeyance the individual
always returns to the natural action of his group."

"How interesting!" said Lady Ethelrida. "Let us look round the table and
decide to what particular group each one of us belongs."

"Most of you are from the same group," he said meditatively.
"Eliminating myself and my niece, Sir James Danvers has perhaps had the
most intermixtures."

"Yes," said Lady Ethelrida, and she laughed. "Jimmy's grandmother was
the daughter of a very rich Manchester cotton spinner; that is what
gives him his sound common sense. I am afraid Tristram and the rest of
us except Lord Coltshurst have not had anything sensible like that in us
for hundreds of years, so what would be your speculation as to the
action of our group?"

"That you would have high courage and fine senses, and highly-strung,
nervous force, and chivalry and good taste, and broad and noble aims in
the higher half and that in the lower portion you would run to the
decadence of all those things--the fine turned to vices--yet even so I
would not look for vulgarity, or bad taste, or cowardice in any of you."

"No," said Lady Ethelrida--"I hope not. Then, according to your
reasoning it is very unjust of us when we say, as perhaps you have heard
it said, that Lady Darrowood is