An untoward little incident had marked the commencement of the
meal. A small still-life picture that hung over the sideboard had
snapped its cord and slid down with an alarming clatter on to the
crowded board beneath it. The picture itself was scarcely damaged,
but its fall had been accompanied by a tinkle of broken glass, and
it was found that a liqueur glass, one out of a set of seven that
would be impossible to match, had been shivered into fragments.
Francesca's almost motherly love for her possessions made her
peculiarly sensible to a feeling of annoyance and depression at the
accident, but she turned politely to listen to Mrs. Greech's
account of a misfortune in which four soup-plates were involved.
Mrs. Henry was not a brilliant conversationalist, and her flank was
speedily turned by Stephen Thorle, who recounted a slum experience
in which two entire families did all their feeding out of one
damaged soup-plate.

"The gratitude of those poor creatures when I presented them with a
set of table crockery apiece, the tears in their eyes and in their
voices when they thanked me, would be impossible to describe."

"Thank you all the same for describing it," said Comus.

The listening eyes went swiftly round the table to gather evidence
as to how this rather disconcerting remark had been received, but
Thorle's voice continued uninterruptedly to retail stories of East-
end gratitude, never failing to mention the particular deeds of
disinterested charity on his part which had evoked and justified
the gratitude. Mrs. Greech had to suppress the interesting sequel
to her broken-crockery narrative, to wit, how she subsequently
matched the shattered soup-plates at Harrod's. Like an imported