rather in my way."
"Oh, Berts, I'm so sorry," she said. "You are playing so well!"
"I know. Esther was in the light, Hugh."
"Oh rather, lot, of course," said Hugh.
Nadine took no active share. She was lying on the grass at the side of the court with Tommy, and was reading "Pride and Prejudice" aloud. When Esther had a few moments to spare she came to listen. John joined the reading party, and wore an appreciative smile.
Nadine came to the end of a chapter.
"Yes, Art, oh, great Art," she said, shutting the book, "but I am not enchained. It corresponds to Madame Bovary, or the Dutch pictures. It is beautifully done; none but an artist could have done it. But I find a great deal of it dull."
John's smile became indulgent.
"Ah, yes," he said, "but what you call dull, I expect I should call subtle. Surely, Nadine, you see how marvelous."
Esther groaned.
"John, you make me feel sick," she began.
"Balls, please," said Hugh.
Esther sprang up.
"Yes, Hugh, I'll get them," she said. "Aren't those two marvelous?" she added to Nadine.
"John is more marvelous," said Nadine. "John, I wish you would get drunk or cheat at cards. It would do you a world of good to lose a little of your self-respect. You respect yourself far too much. Nobody is so respectable as you think yourself. We were talking of you last night: I wish you had been there to hear; but you had gone to bed with your camomile tea. Perhaps you think camomile tea subtle also, whereas I should only find it dull."
"I think you are quibbling with words," he said. "But I, too, wish I had heard you talking last night. I always welcome criticism so long as it is sincere."
"It was quite sincere," said Nadine, "you may rest assured. It was unanimous, too; we were all agreed."
John found this not in the least disconcerting.
"I am not so sure that it matters then," he said. "When several people are talking about one thing – you tell me you were talking about me – they ought to differ. If they all agree, it shows they only see one side of what they are discussing."
Nadine sat up, while Tommy buried his dissipated face in his hands.
"We only saw one side of you," she said, "and that was the obvious one. You will say that it was because we were dull. But since you like criticism you shall know. We all thought you were a prig. Esther said you would be distressed if we thought differently. She said you like being a prig. Do tell me: is it pleasant? Or I expect what I call prig, you call cultured. Are you cultured?"
Tommy sat up.
"Come and listen, Esther," he shouted. "Those glorious athletes can pick up the balls themselves for a minute."
Esther emerged from a laurel bush triumphant with a strayed reveler.
"Oh, is Nadine telling John what she thinks?" she asked.
"Nadine is!" said Tommy.
Nadine meantime collected her thoughts. When she talked she ascertained for herself beforehand what she was going to say. In that respect she was unlike her mother, who ascertained what she thought when she found herself saying it. But the result in both cases had the spontaneous ring.
"John, somehow or other you are a dear," she said, "though we find you detestable. You think, anyhow. That gives you the badge. Anybody who thinks – "
Hugh, like Mr. Longfellow with his arrow, flung his racquet into the air, without looking where it went. He had a moment previously sent a fast drive into the corner of the court, which raised whitewash in a cloud, and won him the set.
"Nadine, are you administering the oath of the clan?" he said. "You haven't consulted either Berts or me."
Nadine looked pained.
"Did you really think I was admitting poor John without consulting you?" she said. "Though he complies with the regulations."
Hugh, streaming with the response that a healthy skin gives to heat, threw himself down on the grass.
"I vote against John!" he said. "I would sooner vote for Seymour. And I won't vote for him. Also, it is surely time to go and bathe."
"I don't know what you are all talking about," said John. "I daresay it doesn't matter. But what is the clan?"
Hugh sat up.
"The clan is nearly prigs," he said, "but not quite. But you are, quite. We are saved because we do laugh at ourselves – "
"And you are not saved because you don't," added Nadine.
"And is the whole object of the clan to think?" asked John.
"No, that is the subject. Also you speak as if we all had said, 'Let there be a clan, and it was so,'" said Nadine. "You mustn't think that. There was a clan, and we discovered it, like Newton and the orange."
"Apple, surely," said John.
Nadine looked brilliantly round.
"I knew he would say that," she said. "You see you correct what I say, whereas a clansman would be content to understand what I mean."
"Bishop Algie is clan, by the way," said Hugh. "I went down to bathe before breakfast, and found him kneeling down on the beach saying his prayers. That is tremendously clannish."
"I don't see why," said John.
Esther sighed.
"No, of course you wouldn't see," she said.
"Try him with another," said Nadine.
Esther considered.
"Attend, John," she said. "When the last Stevenson letters came out, Berts bought them and looked at one page. Then he took a taxi to Paddington and took a return ticket to Bristol."
"Swindon," said Berts.
"The station is immaterial, so long as it was far away. I daresay Swindon is quite as far as Bristol."
John smiled.
"There you are quite wrong," he said. "Swindon comes before Bath, and Bristol after Bath. No doubt it does not matter, though it is as well to be accurate."
Esther looked at him with painful anxiety.
"But don't you see why Berts went to Swindon or Bristol?" she said. "Poor dear, you do see now. That is hopeless. You ought to have felt. To reason out what should have been a flash, is worse than not to have understood at all."
John, again like all other prigs, was patient with those not so gifted as himself.
"I daresay you will explain to me what it all amounts to," he said. "All I am certain of is that Berts wanted to read Stevenson's letters and so got into a train, where he would be undisturbed. Wouldn't it have answered the same purpose if he had taken a room at the Paddington hotel?"
Nadine
