There came a little pause.

Miss Grammont smiled an enquiry at Miss Seyffert.  “If you are,” said Belinda.

“I wish I could imagine your world,” said Miss Grammont, rising, “of two hundred and fifty millions of fully developed human beings with room to live and breathe in and no need for wars.  Will they live in palaces?  Will they all be healthy?...  Machines will wait on them.  No!  I can’t imagine it.  Perhaps I shall dream of it.  My dreaming self may be cleverer.”

She held out her hand to Sir Richmond.  Just for a moment they stood hand in hand, appreciatively....

“Well!” said Dr. Martineau, as the door closed behind the two Americans, “This is a curious encounter.”

“That young woman has brains,” said Sir Richmond, standing before the fireplace.  There was no doubt whatever which young woman he meant.  But Dr. Martineau grunted.

“I don’t like the American type,” the doctor pronounced judicially.

“I do,” Sir Richmond countered.

The doctor thought for a moment or so.  “You are committed to the project of visiting Avebury?” he said.

“They ought to see Avebury,” said Sir Richmond.

“H’m,” said the doctor, ostentatiously amused by his thoughts and staring at the fire.  “Birth Control!  I never did.”

Sir Richmond smiled down on the top of the doctor’s head and said nothing.

“I think,” said the doctor and paused.  “I shall leave this Avebury expedition to you.”

“We can be back in the early afternoon,” said Sir Richmond.  “To give them a chance of seeing the cathedral.  The chapter house here is not one to miss....”

“And then I suppose we shall go on?

“As you please,” said Sir Richmond insincerely.

“I must confess that four people make the car at any rate seem tremendously overpopulated.  And to tell the truth, I do not find this encounter so amusing as you seem to do....  I shall not be sorry when we have waved good-bye to those young ladies, and resume our interrupted conversation.”

Sir Richmond considered something mulish in the doctor’s averted face.

“I find Miss Grammont an extremely interesting—­and stimulating human being.

“Evidently.”

The doctor sighed, stood up and found himself delivering one of the sentences he had engendered during his solitary meditations in his room before dinner.  He surprised himself by the plainness of his speech.  “Let me be frank,” he said, regarding Sir Richmond squarely.  “Considering the general situation of things and your position, I do not care very greatly for the part of an accessory to what may easily develop, as you know very well, into a very serious flirtation.  An absurd, mischievous, irrelevant flirtation.  You may not like the word.  You may pretend it is a conversation, an ordinary intellectual conversation.  That is not the word.  Simply that is not the word.  You people eye one another....  Flirtation.  I give the affair its proper name.  That is all.  Merely that.  When I think—­But we will not discuss it now....  Good night....  Forgive me if I put before you, rather bluntly, my particular point of view.”