“Oh, of course you have. But that’s no reason.” Hester spoke with great conviction. “I daresay you made that particular engagement very much against your will. At all events, you mean to stay, because you only say you ‘believe’ you’re engaged. If you didn’t mean to stay, you would say at once that you ‘had’ an engagement which you couldn’t break. Wouldn’t you? Therefore you will.” “That’s a remarkable piece of logic,” observed Griggs, smiling. “Besides, you’re a lion just now, because you’ve been away so long. So you can break as many engagements as you please--it won’t make any difference.” “There’s a plain and unadorned contempt for social rules in that, which appeals to me. Thanks; if you’ll let me, I’ll stay.” “Of course!” Hester laughed. “You see I’m married to a lion, so I know just what lions do. Walter, Katharine and Mr. Griggs are going to stay to luncheon.” “I’m delighted,” answered Crowdie, from behind his easel. He was putting in background with an enormous brush. “I say, Griggs--” he began again. “Well?” “Do you like Rockaways or Blue Points? I’m sure Hester has forgotten.” “‘When love was the pearl of’ my ‘oyster,’ I used to prefer Blue Points,” answered Griggs, meditatively. “So does Walter,” said Mrs. Crowdie. “Was that a quotation--or what?” asked Katharine, speaking to Crowdie in an undertone. “Swinburne,” answered the painter, indistinctly, for he had one of his brushes between his teeth. “Not that it makes any difference what a man eats,” observed Griggs in the same thoughtful tone. “I once lived for five weeks on ship biscuit and raw apples.” “Good heavens!” laughed Hester. “Where was that? In a shipwreck?” “No; in New York. It wasn’t bad. I used to eat a pound a day--there were twelve to a pound of the white pilot-bread, and four apples.” “Do you mean to say that you were deliberately starving yourself? What for?” “Oh, no! I had no money, and I wanted to write a book, so that I couldn’t get anything for my work till it was done. It wasn’t like little jobs that one’s paid for at once.” “How funny!” exclaimed Hester. “Did you hear that, Walter?” she asked. “Yes; but he’s done all sorts of things.” “Were you ever as hard up as that, Walter?” “Not for so long; but I’ve had my days. Haven’t I, Griggs? Do you remember--in Paris--when we tried to make an omelet without eggs, by the recipe out of the ‘Noble Booke of Cookerie,’ and I wanted to colour it with yellow ochre, and you said it was poisonous? I’ve often thought that if we’d had some saffron, it would have turned out better.” “You cooked it too much,” answered Griggs, gravely. “It tasted like an old binding of a book--all parchment and leathery. There’s nothing in that recipe anyhow. You can’t make an omelet without eggs. I got hold of the book again, and copied it out and persuaded the great man at Voisin’s to try it. But he couldn’t do anything with it. It wasn’t much better than ours.”