woman of the last moment to the woman of the next; getting perhaps rather gray, rather fat, a trifle inclined to coarseness, but preserving all his ardour and all his art in wooing, like a great singer grown old, whose voice is feeble and spent, but whose skill is still triumphant over his audiences--still convinced that each affair was "bigger" than any of the others, still persuading his partner of the same thing, still suffering pangs of pity for himself when he fell away, still responding to the stimulus of a new pursuit. A few days later chance threw him in her way; in truth it could scarcely be called chance, since both, returned from their wanderings, had resumed their habit of frequenting that famous restaurant, and had been received with enthusiasm by the presiding officials. Waiting for her party in the outer room, suddenly she found him standing beside her, looking very handsome and gay, with a mischievous sparkle in his eye. "May I speak to you--or am I no better than one of the wicked?" he said, sitting down beside her. "You're looking very well, Harry. I hope Mrs. Belfield is all right?" "Oh yes, Isobel's first-rate, thank you. So am I. How London agrees with a man! I was out of sorts half the time down at Meriton. A country life doesn't agree with me. I shall chuck it." "You seemed very well down there--physically," the Nun observed. "Sleepy, wasn't it? Sleepy beyond anything. Now here a man feels alive, and awake!" It was not in the least what he had thought about Meriton, it was what he was feeling about Meriton now. He had passed a retrospective Act about Meriton; it was to be deemed to have been always sleepy and dull. "No," he pursued, "when I come into Halton--I hope it won't be for a long while--I think I shall sell it. I can't settle down as a country squire. It's not my line. Too stodgy!" "What about Parliament? Going to find another place?" "If I do, it'll be a town constituency. When I think of those beastly villages! Really couldn't go through with it again! The fact is, I'm rather doubtful about the whole of that game, Doris. No end of a grind--and what do you get out of it? More kicks than ha'pence, as a rule. Your own side doesn't thank you, and the other abuses you like a pickpocket." She nodded. "I think you're quite right. Let it alone." He turned to her quite eagerly. "Do you really think so? Well, I'm more than half inclined to believe you're right. Isobel's always worrying me about it--talks about letting chances slip away, and time slip away, and I don't know what the devil else slip away--till, hang it, my only desire is to imitate time and chances, and slip away myself!" He laughed merrily. The old charm was still there, the power to make his companion take his point of view and sympathise with him, even when the merits were all against him. "You see now what it is to give a woman the right to lecture you, Harry!"