“No doubt you would,” Nick responded dryly.  “And what should you advise, Muriel?”

The question was unexpected, but she had herself in hand, and answered it instantly.  “I certainly shouldn’t advise you to quit.”

He raised his eyebrows.  “Might one ask why?”

She was quite ready for him, inspired by an overmastering longing to hurt him if that were possible.  “Because if you gave up your profession, you would be nothing but a vacuum.  If the chance to destroy life were put out of your reach, you would simply cease to exist.”

She spoke rapidly, her voice pitched very low.  She was trembling all over, and her hands were clenched under the table to hide it.

The laugh with which Nick received her words jarred intolerably upon her.  She heard nothing in it but deliberate cruelty.

“Great Lucifer!” he said.  “You have got me under the microscope with a vengeance.  But you can’t see through me, you know.  I have a reverse side.  Hadn’t you better turn me over and look at that?  There may be sorcery and witchcraft there as well.”

There might be.  She could well have imagined it.  But these were lesser things in which she had no concern.  She turned his thrust aside with disdain.

“I am not sufficiently interested,” she said.  “The little I know is enough.”

“Well hit!” chuckled Nick.  “I retire from the fray, discomfited.  Olga mia, I wish you would find the cigars.  You know where they are.”

Olga sprang to do his bidding.  Having handed the box to Grange she came to Nick and stood beside him while she cut and lighted a cigar for him.

He put his arm round her for a moment, and she stooped a flushed face and kissed the top of his head.

“Run along,” said Nick.  “Take Muriel into the garden.  She hasn’t seen it all.”

Muriel rose.  “We mustn’t be late in starting back,” she remarked to Blake.

But Olga lingered to whisper vehemently in Nick’s ear.

He laughed and shook his head.  “Go, child, go!  You don’t know anything about it.  And Muriel is waiting.  You should never keep a guest waiting.”

Olga went reluctantly.  They passed out into the clear June sunshine together and down towards the shady shrubberies beyond the lawns.

“Can Nick play tennis?” Muriel asked, as they crossed a marked-out court.

“Yes, he can do anything,” the child said proudly.  “He was on horseback this morning, and he managed splendidly.  We generally play tennis in the evening.  He almost always wins.  His services are terrific.  I can’t think how he does it.  He calls it juggling.  I try to manage with only one hand sometimes—­just to keep him company—­but I always make a mess of things.  There’s no one in the world as clever as Nick.”

Muriel felt inclined to agree with her, though in her opinion this distinguishing quality was not an altogether admirable one.  She infinitely preferred people with fewer brains.  She would not, however, say this to Olga, and they paced on together under the trees in silence.  Suddenly a warm hand slid within her arm, and Olga’s grey eyes, very loving and wistful, looked up into hers.