And so the conversation continued--for the most part about men who were now pretty well getting on into middle life, whose destinies had found definite declaration and were visible to all Wyndham expressed his pleasure that his own future, on the contrary, still lay wrapped in mystery; that, though the curtain was full up, the interest of the drama was by no means played out. "You can afford to talk like that, Wyndham," shouted Sadler. "What are you? You're only a boy! But I'm forty, and I tell you I'd give up the interest of the drama for a safe income, and think it a damned good bargain. I get along, I sell my stuff, but I tell you I sweat and groan." "I admit I should like my old income back again," said Wyndham; "not for itself, but for the sake of the splendid freedom to work." "That's just my point," shouted Sadler. "What the hell do I care about money for itself? And I tell you what, my boy, the right thing for an artist is to marry a woman with money." He struck the table hard with his big fist, making the whole restaurant rattle. Wyndham almost jumped. "Good gracious! So that's what you were driving at! The idea to me is perfectly loathsome." "That's just what I used to think," exclaimed Sadler. "But you can't go on for ever with your head in the clouds." "The thing's so awfully brutal and sordid," insisted Wyndham, shuddering visibly. "It makes my blood run cold." "You make me tired," snapped Sadler pettishly. "Where's the sordidness? I don't say a man ought to run after a fortune--but enough to steady things. Taking it all round, we artists have less chance of making money for ourselves than other men of the same worth; and since most of us do marry some time or other, we ought to look to marriage to help our work, and not to drag it down." Wyndham was unconvinced. "If you take away the poetry out of life, the rest of it is too hideous to bother about. If a man marries to make himself comfortable, he's no better than a contented pig wallowing in muck. Rather than surrender the ideal, I'd give up marriage altogether, stand by my guns, and die fighting." "We artists are a damned sentimental lot," shouted Sadler. He lifted a juicy morsel to his mouth. "This chateau's jolly good, isn't it?" "Excellent," admitted Wyndham.