"It was in India, I presume," murmured Mr. Direck, "that Mr. Britling
made the acquaintance of the coloured gentleman?"

"Coloured gentleman!" She gave a swift glance down the table as though
she expected to see something purple with yellow spots. "Oh, that is one
of Mr. Lawrence Carmine's young men!" she explained even more
confidentially and with an air of discussing the silver bowl of roses
before him. "He's a great authority on Indian literature, he belongs to
a society for making things pleasant for Indian students in London, and
he has them down."

"And Mr. Lawrence Carmine?" he pursued.

Even more intimately and confidentially she indicated Mr. Carmine, as it
seemed by a motion of her eyelash.

Mr. Direck prepared to be even more _sotto-voce_ and to plumb a much
profounder mystery. His eye rested on the perambulator; he leant a
little nearer to the ear.... But the strawberries interrupted him.

"Strawberries!" said the young lady, and directed his regard to his left
shoulder by a little movement of her head.

He found one of the boys with a high-piled plate ready to serve him.

And then Mrs. Britling resumed her conversation with him. She was so
ignorant, she said, of things American, that she did not even know if
they had strawberries there. At any rate, here they were at the crest of
the season, and in a very good year. And in the rose season too. It was
one of the dearest vanities of English people to think their apples and