worse! Who wants to look at other people's gardens except to
find fault with 'em?

"Besides, unless you want rain (which we don't with the hay half down)
it's tempting Providence. Nothing'll keep rain off a garden party except
prayers in church during a drought.

"What the hell do you expect to gain by it? I know what it all
means--Buns! Bands! high-heeled kick-shaws cutting up my turf! Why the
devil don't you get a Punch and Judy show down and be done with it?"

"Of course you don't like a garden party," said Lady Staines, smoothly,
"nor do I. Do you suppose I care to be strapped tight into smart stays
at my age, and walk about my own gravel paths in purple satin, listening
to drivel about other people's children? We must do something for the
neighborhood sometimes, whether they like it or not. That's what we're
here for--it's the responsibility of our position. Quite absurd, I know,
but then, most people's responsibilities are quite absurd. You have a
son and he behaves like a fool. You can leave him to take the
consequences of course if you like--only as some of them will devolve on
us, it is worth a slight effort to evade them."

"For God's sake, spit it out, and have done with it!" shouted Sir Peter.
"What's the boy done?"

Lady Staines sat down opposite her husband and folded her hands in her
lap. She was a woman who always sat perfectly still on the rare
occasions when she was not too busy to sit down at all.

"What I hoped would happen," she said, "hasn't happened. He's presumably
picked up with some respectable woman."

"What do you mean by that?" asked Sir Peter. "I never knew any one as
cold-bloodedly immoral as you are, Sarah. Did you want the boy to pick
up with a baggage?"

"Certainly," said Lady Staines. "Why not? I have always understood that
the Social Evil was for our protection, but I never believed it. No
woman worth her salt has ever wanted protection. It's men that want it.
They need a class of creature that won't involve them beyond a certain
point, and quite right too. Winn seemed to see this before he went
off--but he didn't keep it in mind--he ran his head into a noose."

"Has he talked to you about it?" asked Sir Peter, incredulously.

"I don't need talk," said Lady Staines. "I judge by facts. Winn goes to
church regularly, his temper is execrable, and he takes long walks by
himself. A satisfied man is neither irate nor religious--and has
nothing to walk off. Consequently it's a vir