At her instigation the subject changed, for it had been settled once for all, on principle, that no discussion on money matters should ever take place in her house. She wanted to maintain her Court of Love in an atmosphere of malice, scepticism and pleasure. ("What is so nice about going to Elsie's," a foolish old man once said, "is that one is in a kind of anthology, of oral chronicle of events.") "Is it true that since the war people are losing the art of making love?" asked someone. "You remember what our poor dear Hébrard said about that," answered Madame Magnac. Many people wondered what could attract her to Lewis and Lewis to her, on seeing her so delicately moulded, so well suited to the society husband from whom she was separated, so exactly like her photographs by Rehbinder, so faithful to the Constitution and to well-constituted people, as Marbot would say, besides being a Chevalière of the Legion of Honour, and all the rest of it. The reason was that in the first place they had been lovers for a long time (which is not really a good reason at the beginning, but subsequently becomes the best possible one); and secondly, that Lewis was good looking. She was not as finely made as he, but she had more refinement. She had great personal magnetism and was passionately fond of pleasure and clothes; she also possessed an excellent cellar, which meant a great deal to Lewis ("He clings to her," said his friends, "like a drunken man to his lamp-post"); in their intimate moments he found her full of inventiveness and fun. They shared an inclination towards greediness, extravagance and pretty women. The conversation went on. "Love," observed the Prince de Waldeck, "is no longer the highly technical trade it used to be." "It's like everything else, there's no time for it." "People have forgotten how." "Personally," put in Elsie Magnac, "I don't believe that any men are indifferent. It is women who are clumsy." V LEWIS shrugged his shoulders to show that he considered the conversation dull. "Do you mind if I telephone to Martial?" he said abruptly. He made a point of not being a good talker, thinking that not to shine gave him greater authority. "Of course: you know your way." Lewis rang up his office. Martial answered. Lewis announced that he would not be dining with him that evening and that he would leave him to dine alone like an elder with two Susannas. Were they not both flaxen-fair and delightful things to feed? "What did Fidius close at? What was the street price?" A lady had telephoned several times from the Hôtel Meurice during the last hour. Lewis remembered that he had an appointment to meet an unknown lady there. "Go along there before dinner, say you are me and tell her not to bother me," he told Martial. He had neither the manners nor the polished speech of the middle-class young man, but behaved like a scion of the aristocracy.