neighbours. This is a very respectable neighbourhood--oh, quite
dreadfully respectable--and people in the houses about might make a
talk of it if a cab drove away from the door as they were passing.
I think, Phil, you're right. He'd better wait till the church-
people are finished."

"Respectability seems to be a very great object of worship in your
village," Bertram suggested in perfect good faith. "Is it a local
cult, or is it general in England?"

Frida glanced at him, half puzzled. "Oh, I think it's pretty
general," she answered, with a happy smile. "But perhaps the
disease is a little more epidemic about here than elsewhere. It
affects the suburbs: and my brother's got it just as badly as any
one."

"As badly as any one!" Bertram repeated with a puzzled air. "Then
you don't belong to that creed yourself? You don't bend the knee to
this embodied abstraction?--it's your brother who worships her, I
suppose, for the family?"

"Yes; he's more of a devotee than I am," Frida went on, quite
frankly, but not a little surprised at so much freedom in a
stranger. "Though we're all of us tarred with the same brush, no
doubt. It's a catching complaint, I suppose, respectability."

Bertram gazed at her dubiously. A complaint, did she say? Was
she serious or joking? He hardly understood her. But further
discussion was cut short for the moment by Frida good-humouredly
running upstairs to see after the Gladstone bag and brown