Mary had not spoken at all while Rachel harangued them on the question of the factory system, but that was not surprising, for Rachel had not given any of them a chance to say more than two or three words. In Ninian's sitting-room, when Gilbert turned to her and asked her what she thought of factories, she blushed a little, conscious that they had all turned to look at her, and answered that she had never seen a factory.

"Never seen a factory!" Rachel exclaimed, and was off again in denunciation.

Henry went and sat beside Mary while Rachel told tales of sweaters that caused Mrs. Graham to cry out with pain.

"Mary!" he said to her under his breath.

"Yes, Quinny," she answered, turning towards him and speaking as softly as he had spoken.

He fumbled for words. "It's ... it's awfully nice to see you again," he said.

"It's nice to see you all again," she replied.

"You're ... you're so different," he went on.

"Am I?" She paused a moment, and then, smiling at him, said, "So are you."

"Am I very different?" he asked.

"In some ways. You're quite famous now, aren't you?"

"Famous?" he said vaguely.

"Yes. Your novels...."

He laughed. "Oh, dear no, not anything like famous!"

"Well-known, then."

"Moderately well-known. That's all. But what's the point?"

"Well, that's the point," she replied. "You were only 'Quinny' before, but now you're the moderately well-known novelist, and I'm afraid of you...."

"Don't be absurd, Mary!"

"But I am, Quinny. I read a review of one of your books in some paper, and it called you a very wise person, and said you knew a great deal about human nature or something of that sort. Well, one feels rather awful in the presence of a person like that. At least, I do!"

He felt that she was chaffing him, and he did not want to be chaffed by her. He liked the "Quinny" and "Mary" attitude, and he wished that she would forget that he had written "wise" books.

"You're making fun of me," he said.

"Oh, no, I'm not," she answered quickly. "I'm quite serious!"

He did not answer for a few moments. He could hear Rachel's passionate voice saying, "They get seven shillings a week ... in theory. There are fines ..." and he wondered why it was that she repelled him. Her sincerity was palpable ... it was clear that she was hurt by the miseries of factory girls ... but in spite of her sincerity, he felt that he could not bear to be near her. "If she'd only talk of something else," he thought ... and then returned to Mary.

"Do you remember that time at Boveyhayne?" he said.

"Which time?" she asked.

"The first time."

"Yes."

He swallowed and then went on. "Do you remember what I said to you ... on the platform at Whitcombe?"

She spoke more quickly and loudly as she answered him. "Oh, yes," she said, "we got engaged, didn't we? We were kids!..."

Mrs. Graham caught the word "engaged."

"Who's engaged?" she asked.

"No one, mother," Mary answered. "Quinny and I were talking about the time when we were engaged!..."

He felt a frightful fool. What on earth had possessed her that she should treat the matter in this fashion?

"Were you engaged, dear?" Mrs. Graham said.

"Oh, yes, mother. Don't you remember? Of course, we were kids then!..."

Why did she insist on the fact that they were "kids" then?

"I remember it," Ninian interjected. "Old Quinny was frightfully sloppy over it. Oh, I say, I met Tom Arthurs to-day. He's going to Southampton to-morrow. The Gigantic's starting on her maiden trip, and he's going over with her. I wish to goodness I could go too!"

"Why don't you?" Mrs. Graham said. It seemed to her too that if Ninian wished to do anything that was sufficient reason why he should be allowed to do it.

"I can't get away," he answered. "We're busier than we've ever been. But I'm going to Southampton to see the Gigantic start. The biggest boat in the world! My goodness! Tom's awfully excited about it. You'd think the Gigantic was his son!..."

Henry thanked heaven that at last the conversation had veered from factories and his engagement to Mary. He tried to fasten it to the Gigantic.

"What are you so busy about that you can't go with Tom?" he asked.

"Oh, heaps of things! Old Hare's keen on building a Channel Tunnel, and he's spent a good deal of time working the thing out!"

Mrs. Graham had always imagined that the proposal to build a Tunnel between France and England was a joke, and she said so.

"Good heavens, mother!" Ninian exclaimed. "Old Hare isn't a joke. The thing's as practicable as the Tuppenny Tube. People have been experimenting for half-a-century with it. Joke, indeed! They've made seven thousand soundings in forty years!..."

"Really!" said Mrs. Graham.

"And borings, too ... lots of them ... in the bed of the Channel. They've started a Tunnel, two thousand yards of it from Dover, under the sea, and there isn't a flaw in it. Hardly any water comes through, although there isn't a lining to the walls ... just the bare, grey chalk. I was awfully sick when I was told I couldn't go to Harland and Wolff's, but I don't mind now. Building a Channel Tunnel is as big a job as building the Gigantic any day, and Hare is as brainy as Tom Arthurs!"

He became oratorical about the Channel Tunnel, and he told them stories of remarkable borings on both sides of the sea.

"There's a big thick bed of grey chalk all the way from England to France," he said, "and the water simply can't get through it. They've made experimental tubes from our side and from the French side, and they let people into them, and it was all right. No mud, no water, no foul air ... perfectly sound!"

He quoted Sartiaux, the French engineer, and Sir Francis Fox, the English engineer. "They don't fool about with wildcat schemes, I can tell you. Why, Fox built the Mersey Tunnel and the Simplon Tunnel ... and the Channel Tunnel is as easy as that!"

There were to be two tubes, each capable of carrying the ordinary British railway, bored through a bed of cenomian chalk, two hundred feet thick on an average.

"We could have an extra tunnel for motor-cars, if necessary!" said Ninian. "Just think of the difference there'd be if we had the Tunnel. You could buzz from London to Paris in five or six hours without changing, and you'd never get seasick!..."

"That would be nice," said Mrs. Graham.

"And you'd be safer in the Tunnel than you'd be on the Channel. There'd be a hundred and fifty feet of watertight chalk between you and the sea!"

They argued about the Tunnel. How long would it take to construct? "Oh, six or seven years!" Ninian answered airily. "What about War? Supposing England and France went to War with each other?"

"We could flood a long section of the Tunnel from our side, and they couldn't pump the water out from theirs," he answered. "Of course, I don't know much about it, but when you get chaps like Hare and Sartiaux and Fox talking seriously about it, you listen seriously to them. Anyhow, I do. Old Hare told me yesterday I was getting on nicely!..."

Mrs. Graham was delighted. "Did he, dear?" she burbled at Ninian.

"Yes," Ninian answered, "he said I wasn't such an ass as he'd thought I was. Oh, I'm getting on all right!"