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'Thanks.' She asked suddenly: 'Look here. Was it what you saw of us--the future mothers of England, you know, and all--at Miss Lampeter's--that made you take to the slums? Out of disgust and despair?'

'Oh, let's not make melodrama out of it,' the priest answered. 'Let's say I wanted a change. I couldn't see that I was doing any good.'

'You did us all the good there was done,' Sylvia said. 'What with Miss Lampeter always drugged to the world, and all the French mistresses as wicked as hell.'

'I've heard you say all this before,' Mrs Satterthwaite said. 'But it was supposed to be the best finishing school in England. I know it cost enough!'

'Well, say it was we who were a rotten lot,' Sylvia concluded; and then to the Father: 'We were a lot of rotters, weren't we?'

The priest answered:

'I don't know. I don't suppose you were--or are--any worse than your mother or grandmother, or the patricianesses of Rome or the worshippers of Ashtaroth. It seems we have to have a governing class and governing classes are subject to special temptations.'