"No. Soap. I am of opinion that this age can do no good so long as it is bound to the chariot wheels of soap. This is the age of science, and soap is its god. Old Q. once became impatient with the river Thames, and said he could see nothing in it----" "He was born too soon. In his time they had not begun to spy into the slums of nature. For my part I think the microscope is the tyrant of this age. What did old Q. say about our father Tiber?" "He said he could see nothing in it, that it always went flow--flow--flow, and that was all." "One must not expect too much of a river. A river is no more than human, after all. But what has soap been doing?" "Nothing; and in the fact that it has been doing nothing lies one of my chief counts against it. Of old you judged a man by the club to which he belonged, the number of his quarterings, the tailor who made his clothes, the income he had, the wife he married, the horses he backed, or the wine he drank. Now we classify men according to the soap they use. There are more soaps now than patent medicines." "Soaps are patent medicine for external use only," said Lady Forcar, touching her white plump wrist. "There may be some sense in a pill against the earthquake, or against an unlucky star, but how on earth can soap be of any use? First you smear a horrid compound over you, and then you wash it off as quickly as possible. Can anything be more childish? It is even more childish than the Thames. It can't even flow of itself. It is a relic of barbarism." "But are not we ourselves relics of barbarism? Suppose you were to abolish all relics of barbarism in man, you would have no man at all. Heads, and arms, and bodies, are relics of barbaric man. Had not barbaric man heads, and arms, and bodies? Are you going to abolish heads, and arms, and bodies?" "Well," said Mr. Anstruther, the composer, "I don't know. I think they might be reduced. Anyway," dropping his voice, and bending over her ladyship, "our little friend here, whom Mr. Hanbury brought in, manages to hold his own, and more than hold his own, with less of such relics of barbarism than most of us." "I was just saying to Sir Julius when you, Mr. Anstruther, came up, that I consider the stranger the most remarkable man I ever met in this house, and quite capable of undertaking and carrying out any social revolution, even to the discrediting of soap. If you have been introduced bring him to me." "I haven't, unfortunately, but I'll tell Hanbury, who looks as black as thunder, that you would like to speak to him." "I have scarcely seen Miss Ashton to-day. Let us go to them. That is the simplest way," said Lady Forcar, rising and moving towards the place where Dora, Hanbury, and Leigh stood. When Leigh finished eating the bread-and-butter and drinking the tiny cup of tea, he said: "You wish, Miss Ashton, to know in what way I have been lucky to-day?"