"I have come back to what is called society," Rachel was saying, "after
nearly seven years of an exile something like Nebuchadnezzar's, and
there are two things which I find as difficult as Kipling's 'silly
sailors' found their harps 'which they twanged unhandily.'"

"Is small talk one of them?" asked Hugh. "It has always been a
difficulty to me."

"On the contrary," said Rachel. "I plume myself on that. Surely my
present sample is not so much below the average that you need ask me
that."

"I did not recognize that it _was_ small talk," said Hugh, with a faint
smile. "If it really is, I can only say I shall have brain fever if you
pass on to what _you_ might call conversation."

It was to him as if a miniature wavelet of a great ocean somewhere in
the distance had crept up to laugh and break at his feet. He did not
recognize that this tiniest runlet which fell back at once was of the
same element as the tidal wave which had swept over him yesternight.

"But are you aware," said Rachel, dropping her voice a little, "it is
beginning to dawn upon me that this evening's gathering is met together
for exalted conversation, and perhaps we ought to be practising a
little. I feel certain that after dinner you will be 'drawn through the
clefts of confession' by Miss Barker, the woman in the high dinner gown
with orange velvet sleeves. Mrs. Loftus introduced her to me when I
arrived as the 'apostle of humanity.'"

"Why should you fix on that particular apostle for me?" said Hugh,