"You look so uncomfortable there. This chair isn't being used. Won't you
sit down?"

"That's very good of you. I was getting a decided crick in my back," he
said, sitting down and wondering whether to go on reading or to
entertain her. Marcella looked at him; he was the epitome of propriety,
the spirit of the Sabbath incarnate in his neat black suit, gold
watch-chain and very high collar.

"I really asked you to sit here for quite a selfish reason," she said.
"I want to know the meanings of some words that have just cropped up.
You look as if you know."

The young man coughed and looked pleased.

"I am a schoolmaster," he remarked. "Probably I can--"

"Inhibition?" she interrupted.

"Inhibition?" he said. "That means 'holding back.' Latin '_habeo_, I
have' or 'I hold' and 'in--"

"Women have no inhibitions," she repeated; "no power of holding back."

She frowned, and decided to return to that later. "Now
philoprogenitive," she said turning to him. He stared at her, coughed
again and held out his hand for the book.

"That's rather a difficult book for a girl to be reading, isn't it?" he
said, glancing at the title page. "Oh, Kraill the biologist? Whatever