the dilettante and academic way of approaching it.  We must collect 
and assimilate hard facts.  It is a subject that ought to appeal to 
all thinking minds, and yet, you know, I find it surprisingly 
difficult to interest people in it."

Francesca made some monosyllabic response, a sort of sympathetic 
grunt which was meant to indicate that she was, to a certain 
extent, listening and appreciating.  In reality she was reflecting 
that Henry possibly found it difficult to interest people in any 
topic that he enlarged on.  His talents lay so thoroughly in the 
direction of being uninteresting, that even as an eye-witness of 
the massacre of St. Bartholomew he would probably have infused a 
flavour of boredom into his descriptions of the event.

"I was speaking down in Leicestershire the other day on this 
subject," continued Henry, "and I pointed out at some length a 
thing that few people ever stop to consider - "

Francesca went over immediately but decorously to the majority that 
will not stop to consider.

"Did you come across any of the Barnets when you were down there?" 
she interrupted; "Eliza Barnet is rather taken up with all those 
subjects."

In the propagandist movements of Sociology, as in other arenas of 
life and struggle, the fiercest competition and rivalry is 
frequently to be found between closely allied types and species.  
Eliza Barnet shared many of Henry Greech's political and social 
views, but she also shared his fondness for pointing things out at 
some length; there had been occasions when she had extensively 
occupied the strictly limited span allotted to the platform oratory 
of a group of speakers of whom Henry Greech had been an impatient 
unit.  He might see eye to eye with her on the leading questions of 
the day, but he persistently wore mental blinkers as far as her 
estimable qualities were concerned, and the mention of her name was 
a skilful lure drawn across the trail of his discourse; if 
Francesca had to listen to his eloquence on any subject she much 
preferred that it should be a disparagement of Eliza Barnet rather 
than the prevention of destitution.

"I've no doubt she means well," said Henry, "but it would be a good 
thing if she could be induced to keep her own personality a little 
more in the background, and not to imagine that she is the 
necessary mouthpiece of all the progressive thought in the 
countryside.  I fancy Canon Besomley must have had her in his mind 
when he said that some people came into the world to shake empires 
and others to move amendments."

Francesca laughed with genuine amusement.

"I suppose she is really wonderfully well up in all the subjects 
she talks about," was her provocative comment.

Henry grew possibly conscious of the fact that he was being drawn 
out on the subject of Eliza Barnet, and he presently turned on to a 
more personal topic.

"From the general air of tranquillity about the house I presume 
Comus has gone back to Thaleby," he observed.

"Yes," said Francesca, "he went back yesterday.  Of course, I'm 
very fond of him, but I bear the separation well.  When he's here 
it's rather like having a live volcano in the house, a volcano that 
in its quietest moments asks incessant questions and uses strong 
scent."

"It is only a temporary respite," said Henry; "in a year or two he 
will be leaving school, and then what?"

Francesca closed her eyes with the air of one who seeks to shut out 
a distressing vision.  She was not fond of looking intimately at 
the future in the presence of another person, especially when the 
future was draped in doubtfully auspicious colours.

"And then what?" persisted Henry.

"Then I suppose he will be upon my hands."

"Exactly."

"Don't sit there looking judicial.  I'm quite ready to listen to 
suggestions if you've any to make."

"In the case of any ordinary boy," said Henry, "I might make lots 
of suggestions as to the finding of suitable employment.  From what 
we know of Comus it would be rather a waste of time for either of 
us to look for jobs which he wouldn't look at when we'd got them 
for him."

"He must do something," said Francesca.

"I know he must; but he never will.  At least, he'll never stick to 
anything.  The most hopeful thing to do with him will be to marry 
him to an heiress.  That would solve the financial side of his 
problem.  If he had unlimited money at his disposal, he might go 
into the wilds somewhere and shoot big game.  I never know what the 
big game have done to deserve it, but they do help to deflect the 
destructive energies of some of our social misfits."