“Nothing at all.  You are thinking of your own mother.  You forget that you never see her.  Any son can live with any mother under those conditions.  The fact remains:  nobody can misunderstand a boy like his own mother.  Look around you, and see if it is not true!  Honour thy father and thy mother.  Perhaps.  But we must civilize our mothers before we can expect any rational companionship between them and their sons.  Girls are different.  They are more cynical and less idealistic, they can put up with mothers, they can laugh at them.  I am speaking in a general way.  Of course there are shining exceptions.  Mothers at present can bring children into the world, but this performance is apt to mark the end of their capacities.  They can’t even attend to the elementary animal requirements of their offspring.  It is quite surprising how many children survive in spite of their mothers.  Ask any doctor.”

“If that is the case there must be something wrong with our social system.  You may be sure that the female cat or canary bird is just as efficient in her department as the male in his.  Speaking from my own experience among the London poor, I should say that the father is often a mere parasite on his wifo and children—­”

“We may both of us be right.  But I wish you would take Denis in hand a little.  Will you?  Perhaps you misread his character.  He may be afraid of you.”

“Have you any particular reason—?”

“I don’t like his looks.  There is something tragic about him lately.”

Mr. Heard was slightly nettled.  After all, he was not on Nepenthe for the purpose of doling out consolations to melancholy undergraduates.

“I should be sorry to think myself singled out for his distrust,” he replied.  “At the same time, I don’t notice that he has much to say to certain other people—­to the Commissioner, for instance, or to Mr. Muhlen.”

“Muhlen?  He is quite right to leave Muhlen alone.  Quite right.  It proves his intuition.  I have learnt all about that man.  A beastly character.  He has a bad record.  Lives on blackmail and women.  His real name is Retlow.”

And Mr. Keith lit a cigar, as though to dismiss the subject.

“Retlow, you say?  That’s queer.”

The name sounded familiar to the bishop.  Where had he heard it before?  He racked his memory.  Where could it have been?  Retlow. . . .  It was not a common name.  Long ago, obviously.  Where?

In African days, or earlier?

His searchings were interrupted by the voice of the old boatman who, relinquishing an oar, pointed to a swart precipice near at hand and said in tolerable English (the older generation of natives all spoke English—­their children were learning Russian): 

“The suicides’ rock, gentlemens.  Ah!  Many is the poor Christian I have pick up there.  He throw down hisself.  Him dead.  Often in small pieces.  Here blood.  Here brain.  Here leg and boot.  Here finger.  Ah!  The poor Chiristian.  That so, gentlemens.”