the younger generation--had used it as a
painting-room; a settee and deep cane chairs made it an inviting lounge
on a warm evening like the present, when, by throwing open a hinged
wall, one looked forth into the deep sky and tasted the air from the
sea.

'Sidwell used to paint a little,' said Buckland, as his companion bent
to examine a small canvas on which a landscape was roughed in. It lay
on a side table, and was half concealed by an ordnance map, left
unfolded. 'For the last year or two I think she has given it up. I'm
afraid we are not strong in matters of art. Neither of the girls can
play very well, though of course they both tinkle for their own
amusement. Maurice--the poor lad who was killed--gave a good deal of
artistic promise; father keeps some little water-colours of his, which
men in that line have praised--perhaps sincerely.'

'I remember you used to speak slightingly of art,' said Godwin, as he
took an offered cigar.

'Did I? And of a good many other things, I daresay. It was my habit at
one time, I believe, to grow heated in scorn of Euclid's definitions.
What an interesting book Euclid is! Half a year ago, I was led by a
talk with Moorhouse to go through some of the old "props", and you
can't imagine how they delighted me. Moorhouse was so obliging as to
tell me that I had an eminently deductive mind.'

He laughed, but not without betraying some pleasure in the remark.

'Surprising,' he went on, 'how very little such a mind as Moorhouse's
suggests itself in common conversation. He is really profound in
mathematics, a man of original powers, but I never heard him make a
remark of the slightest value on any other subject. Now his sister--she
has studied nothing in particular, yet she can't express an opinion
that doesn't bear the stamp of originality.'

Godwin was contented to muse, his eyes fixed on a brilliant star in the
western heaven.

'There's only one inconsistency in her that annoys and puzzles me,'
Buckland pursued, speaking with the cigar in his mouth. 'In religion,
she seems to be orthodox. True, we have never spoken on the subject,
but--well, she goes to church, and carries prayer-books. I don't know
how to explain it. Hypocrisy is the last thing one could suspect her
of. I'm sure she hates it in every form. And such a clear brain!--I
can't understand it.'

The listener was still star-gazing. He had allowed his cigar, after the
first few puffs, to smoulder untasted; his lips were