it is to be remarked that two facts, usually esteemed as supremely important in the life of a woman, do not seem to have affected mr. brumley's state of mind nearly so much as quite trivial personal details about lady harman. the first of these facts was the existence of the lady's four children, and the second, sir isaac.

mr. brumley did not think very much of either of these two facts; if he had they would have spoilt the portrait in his mind; and when he did think of them it was chiefly to think how remarkably little they were necessary to that picture's completeness.

he spent some little time however trying to recall exactly what it was she had said about her children. he couldn't now succeed in reproducing her words, if indeed it had been by anything so explicit as words that she had conveyed to him that she didn't feel her children were altogether hers. "incidental results of the collapse of her girlhood," tried mr. brumley, "when she married harman."

expensive nurses, governesses—the best that money without prestige or training could buy. and then probably a mother-in-law.

and as for harman——?

there mr. brumley's mind desisted for sheer lack of material. given this lady and that board and his general impression of harman's refreshment and confectionery activity—the data were insufficient. a commonplace man no doubt, a tradesman, energetic perhaps and certainly a little brassy, successful by the chances of that economic revolution which everywhere replaces the isolated shop by the syndicated enterprise, irrationally conceited about it; a man perhaps ultimately to be pitied—with this young goddess finding herself.... mr. brumley's mind sat down comfortably to the more congenial theme of a young goddess finding herself, and it was only very gradually in the course of several days that the personality of sir isaac began to assume its proper importance in the scheme of his imaginings.