is
actions defied prediction. He felt it as an impertinence that anybody,
even a Brodrick, should presume to conjecture how a Brodrick would, in
any given circumstances, behave. He held it a special prerogative of
Brodricks, this capacity for accomplishing the unforeseen. Nobody was
surprised when the unforeseen happened; for this family made it a point
of honour never to be surprised. The performances of other people,
however astounding, however eccentric, appeared to a Brodrick as the
facilely calculable working of a law from which a Brodrick was exempt.
Whatever another person did, it was always what some Brodrick had
expected him to do. Even when Frances's husband ran away with the
governess and broke the heart Frances had set on him, it was only what
John and Henry and Sophy and Hugh had known would happen if she married
him. If it hadn't happened to a Brodrick, they would hardly have blamed
Heron for his iniquity; it was so inherent in him and predestined.

So, when it seemed likely that Hugh would marry Jane Holland, the
Brodricks were careful to conceal from each other that they were
unprepared for this event. They discussed it casually, and with less
emotion than they had given to the wild project of the magazine.

It was on a Sunday evening at the John Brodricks', shortly after Jane
had left Putney.

"It strikes me," said John who began it, "that one way or another Hugh
is seeing a great deal of Miss Holland."

"My dear John, why shouldn't he?" said Frances Heron.

"I'm not saying that he shouldn't. I'm saying that one way or another,
he does."

"He has to see her on business," said Frances.

"_Does_ he see her on business?" inquired John.

"He says he does," said Frances.

"Of course," said the Doctor, "he'd _say_ he did."

"Why," said Sophy, "does he say anything at all? That's the suspicious
circumstance, to my mind."

"He's evidently aware," said the Doctor, "that something wants
explaining."

"So it does," said Sophy; "when Hugh takes to seeing any woman more than
once in five months."

"But she's the last woman he'd think of," said Frances.

"It's the last woman a man thinks of that he generally ends by
marrying," said John.

"If he'd only think of her," said the Doctor, "he'd be safe enough."

"I know. It's his not thinking," said John; "it's his dashing into it
with his eyes shut."

"Do you think," said Frances, "we'd better open his eyes?"

"If you do that," said Levine, "he'll