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'I don't say that it's devils trying to get in,' the Father said. 'But it's just as well to remember that devils are always trying to get in. And there are especial spots. These deep forests are noted among others.' He suddenly turned his back and pointed at the shadowy wall. 'Who,' he asked, 'but a savage possessed by a devil could have conceived of that as a decoration?' He was pointing to a life-sized, coarsely daubed picture of a wild boar dying, its throat cut, and gouts of scarlet blood. Other agonies of animals went away into all the shadows.

'Sport!' he hissed. 'It's devilry!'

'That's perhaps true,' Sylvia said. Mrs Satterthwaite was crossing herself with great rapidity. The silence remained.

Sylvia said:

'Then if you're both done talking I'll say what I have to say. To begin with...' She stopped and sat rather erect, listening to the rustling from the shutters.

'To begin with,' she began again with impetus, 'you spared me the catalogue of the defects of age; I know them. One grows skinny--my sort--the complexion fades, the teeth stick out. And then there is the boredom. I know it; one is bored...bored...bored! You can't tell me anything I don't know about that. I'm thirty. I know what to expect. You'd like to have told me, Father, only you were afraid of taking away from your famous man of the world effect--you'd like to have told me that one can insure against the boredom and the long, skinny teeth by love of husband and child. The home stunt! I believe it!