‘Buying much this trip?’ asked Stanway.

‘Not much, and not your sort,’ said Twemlow.  ’The truth is, I’m fixing up a branch in London.’

’But, my dear fellow, surely there’s no American business done through London in English goods?’

‘No, perhaps not,’ said Twemlow.  ’But that don’t say there isn’t going to be.  Besides, I’ve got a notion of coming in for a share of your colonial shipping trade.  And let me tell you there’s a lot of business done through London between the United States and the Continent, in glass and fancy goods.’

‘Oh, yes, I know there is,’ Stanway conceded.  ’And so you think you’re going to teach the old country a thing or two?’

‘That depends.’

‘On what?’

’On whether the old country’s made up her mind yet to sit down and learn.’  He laughed.

Ethel saw by the change of colour in her father’s neck that the susceptibilities of his patriotism had been assailed.

‘What do you mean?’ Stanway asked pugnaciously.

‘I mean that you are falling behind here,’ said Twemlow with cold, nonchalant firmness.  ’Every one knows that.  You’re getting left.  Look how you’re being cut out in cheap toilet stuff.  In ten years you won’t be shipping a hundred dollars’ worth per annum of cheap toilet to the States.’

‘But listen, Twemlow,’ said Stanway impressively.

Twemlow continued, imperturbable:  ’You in the Five Towns stick to old-fashioned methods.  You can’t cut it fine enough.’

‘Old-fashioned?  Not cut it fine enough?’ Stanway exclaimed, rising.

Twemlow laughed with real mirth.  ‘Yes,’ he said.

‘Give me one instance—­one instance,’ cried Stanway.

‘Well,’ said Twemlow, ’take firing.  I hear you still pay your firemen by the oven, and your placers by the day, instead of settling all oven-work by scorage.’

’Tell me about that—­the Trenton system.  I’d like to hear about that.  It’s been mentioned once or twice,’ said Stanway, resuming his chair.

‘Mentioned!’

Ethel perceived vaguely that the forceful man who held her in the hollow of his hand had met more than his match.  Over that spectacle she rejoiced like a small child; but at the same time Arthur Twemlow’s absolute conviction that the Five Towns was losing ground frightened her, made her feel that life was earnest, and stirred faint longings for the serious way.  It seemed to her that she was weighed down by knowledge of the world, whereas gay Millicent, and Rose with her silly examinations....  She plunged again into the actuality of the letter from Paris....

‘I called really to speak to you about my father’s estate.’

Ethel was startled into attention by the sudden careful politeness in Arthur Twemlow’s manner and by a quivering in his voice.

‘What of it?’ said Stanway.  ’I’ve forgotten all the details.  Fifteen years since, you know.’