ought to have them, Mary ought to have them--dozens and dozens.
He emphasised his point by thumping with his walking-stick on the
bull's leather flanks. Mr. Scogan ought to pass on his
intelligence to little Scogans, and Denis to little Denises. The
bull turned his head to see what was happening, regarded the
drumming stick for several seconds, then turned back again
satisfied, it seemed, that nothing was happening. Sterility was
odious, unnatural, a sin against life. Life, life, and still
more life. The ribs of the placid bull resounded.

Standing with his back against the farmyard pump, a little apart,
Denis examined the group. Gombauld, passionate and vivacious,
was its centre. The others stood round, listening--Henry
Wimbush, calm and polite beneath his grey bowler; Mary, with
parted lips and eyes that shone with the indignation of a
convinced birth-controller. Anne looked on through half-shut
eyes, smiling; and beside her stood Mr. Scogan, bolt upright in
an attitude of metallic rigidity that contrasted strangely with
that fluid grace of hers which even in stillness suggested a soft
movement.

Gombauld ceased talking, and Mary, flushed and outraged, opened
her mouth to refute him. But she was too slow. Before she could
utter a word Mr. Scogan's fluty voice had pronounced the opening
phrases of a discourse. There was no hope of getting so much as
a word in edgeways; Mary had perforce to resign herself.

"Even your eloquence, my dear Gombauld," he was saying--"even
your eloquence must prove inadequate to reconvert the world to a
belief in the delights of mere multiplication. With the