s. His demeanour is reflective.]

MRS. BARTHWICK. Lady Holyrood has got very stout. I 've noticed it
coming for a long time.

BARTHWICK. [Gloomily.] Stout? [He takes up the crackers--with
transparent airiness.] The Holyroods had some trouble with their
servants, had n't they?

JACK. Crackers, please, Dad.

BARTHWICK. [Passing the crackers.] It got into the papers. The
cook, was n't it?

MRS. BARTHWICK. No, the lady's maid. I was talking it over with
Lady Holyrood. The girl used to have her young man to see her.

BARTHWICK. [Uneasily.] I'm not sure they were wise----

MRS. BARTHWICK. My dear John, what are you talking about? How
could there be any alternative? Think of the effect on the other
servants!

BARTHWICK. Of course in principle--I wasn't thinking of that.

JACK. [Maliciously.] Crackers, please, Dad.

[BARTHWICK is compelled to pass the crackers.]

MRS. BARTHWICK. Lady Holyrood told me: "I had her up," she said; "I
said to her, 'You'll leave my house at once; I think your conduct
disgraceful. I can't tell, I don't know, and I don't wish to know,
what you were doing. I send you away on principle; you need not
come to me for a character.' And the girl said: 'If you don't give
me my notice, my lady, I want a month's wages. I'm perfectly
respectable. I've done nothing.'"'--Done nothing!

BARTHWICK. H'm!

MRS. BARTHWICK. Servants have too much license. They hang together
so terribly you never can tell what they're really thinking; it's as
if they were all in a conspiracy to keep you in the dark. Even with
Marlow, you feel that he never lets you know what's really in his
mind. I hate that secretiveness; it destroys all confidence. I
feel sometimes I should like to shake him.

JACK. Marlow's a most decent chap. It's simply beastly every one
knowing your affairs.

BARTHWICK. The less you say about that the better!

MRS. BARTHWICK. It goes all through the lower classes. You can not
tell when they are speaking the truth. To-day when I was shopping
after leaving the Holyroods, one of these unemployed came up and
spoke to me. I suppose I only had twenty yards or so to walk to the
carnage, but he seemed to spring up in the street.

BARTHWICK. Ah! You must be very careful whom you speak to in these
days.

MRS. BARTHWICK. I did n't answer him, of course. But I could see
at once that he wasn't telling the truth.

BARTHWICK. [Cracking a nut.] There's on