 map, left unfolded. »For the last
year or two I think she has given it up. I'm afraid we are not strong in matters
of art. Neither of the girls can play very well, though of course they both
tinkle for their own amusement. Maurice - the poor lad who was killed - gave a
good deal of artistic promise; father keeps some little water-colours of his,
which men in that line have praised - perhaps sincerely.«
    »I remember you used to speak slightingly of art,« said Godwin, as he took
an offered cigar.
    »Did I? And of a good many other things, I daresay. It was my habit at one
time, I believe, to grow heated in scorn of Euclid's definitions. What an
interesting book Euclid is! Half a year ago, I was led by a talk with Moorhouse
to go through some of the old props, and you can't imagine how they delighted
me. Moorhouse was so obliging as to tell me that I had an eminently deductive
mind.«
    He laughed, but not without betraying some pleasure in the remark.
    »Surprising,« he went on, »how very little such a mind as Moorhouse's
suggests itself in common conversation. He is really profound in mathematics, a
man of original powers, but I never heard him make a remark of the slightest
value on any other subject. Now his sister - she has studied nothing in
particular, yet she can't express an opinion that doesn't bear the stamp of
originality.«
    Godwin was contented to muse, his eyes fixed on a brilliant star in the
western heaven.
    »There's only one inconsistency in her that annoys and puzzles me,« Buckland
pursued, speaking with the cigar in his mouth. »In religion, she seems to be
orthodox. True, we have never spoken on the subject, but - well, she goes to
church, and carries prayer-books. I don't know how to explain it. Hypocrisy is
the last thing one could suspect her of. I'm sure she hates it in every form.
And such a clear brain! - I can't understand it.«
    The listener was still star-gazing. He had allowed his cigar, after the
first few puffs, to smoulder untasted; his lips were drawn into an expression
very unlike the laxity appropriate to pleasurable smoking. When the murmur of
the pines had for a moment been audible, he said, with a forced smile:
    »I notice you take for
