"I do wish he'd call me 'mamma'!" she cried. "He makes me feel a hundred years old." To change the subject, he inquired if she had read Henry James's new book. "I don't know," she said. "Oh yes, they sent it me from the library this week. It isn't bad; I didn't like it much. Did _you_ read it, Cæsar?" Cæsar became conscious that people talked. "Read?" he echoed wearily. "Read what?" "Henry James's last. I forget what it was called----Something. I saw you with it the other day. A red book." "I looked through it. I had nothing to do." "Quite amusing?" she said. "Wasn't it?" "I forget," he murmured; "I never do remember these things." "It took a clever man some time to write," said Kent; "it might have been worth your attention for a whole afternoon." Cæsar was not disturbed. Neither his confidence nor his amiability was shaken. "Do you think so?" he said with gentleness. "I _can't_ read these things any more. There's nothing to be gained. What does one acquire? Whether Angelina marries Edwin, or whether she marries Charles----!" He shook his head and smiled compassionately. Sam Walford guffawed. "When I feel that my mind's been at too great a tension, I sometimes _glance_ at a novel; but I'm afraid--I'm _really_ afraid--I can't concede that I should be justified in giving up an afternoon to one." "Cæsar has his work to think of, you know," put in Cynthia; "he's not like us women." "You'll find it a tough job to get the best of Cæsar in an argument," proclaimed Walford boisterously. "Oh, I don't deny that I _have_ read novels in my time. There was a time when I could read a yellow-back." He made this admission in the evident belief that a book was more frivolous in cardboard covers than in the cloth of its first edition. "But I can't do it to-day." "Well," cried Mrs. Walford, "_I_ must say I agree with Humphrey; I must say I think it's very clever to write a good novel--I do really! _I_ couldn't write one; I'm sure I couldn't--I haven't the patience." "Oh!" exclaimed Cæsar, with charming confusion; "it's Humphrey's own line--of course it is! I always forget." He turned to Kent deprecatingly: "You know, I never associate you with it; it's a surprise every time I remember." Kent said it was really of no consequence at all. "Well, well, well," said Walford, "everybody to his trade! We can't all be born with a fortune in our throats. Wish we could--eh, Humphrey, my boy? Did you hear what Lassalle said about his voice the other day? Cæsar, just tell Humphrey what Lassalle said about your voice the other day." "Oh, Humphrey doesn't want to listen to that long story," said Mrs. Walford, "I'm sure?" He could do no less, after this, than express curiosity. "Well, then, Cæsar, tell us what it was." "Do, Cæsar," begged his sister; "I haven't heard, either." "A trifle," he demurred, "not interesting. I didn't know I'd mentioned it."