During the last few months he had employed himself in tabulating from memory the errors in the _Encyclopœdia Britannica_, of which a new edition had lately appeared. He had even written an article for a dull monthly on the subject. It had been so caustic as to miss its mark, rather. He despised people who used works of reference; but the point of view had been so unfamiliar that his article had galled no one's withers, except possibly Macmaster's. Actually it had pleased Sir Reginald Ingleby, who had been glad to think that he had under him a young man with a memory so tenacious and so encyclopædic a knowledge. . . . That had been a congenial occupation, like a long drowse. Now he had to make enquiries. He said: "And my breaking up the establishment at twenty-nine? How's that viewed? I'm not going to have a house again." "It's considered," Macmaster answered, "that Lowndes Street did not agree with Mrs. Satterthwaite. That accounted for her illness. Drains wrong. I may say that Sir Reginald entirely--expressly--approves. He does not think that young married men in Government offices should keep up expensive establishments in the S.W. district." Tietjens said: "Damn him." He added: "He's probably right though." He then said: "Thanks. That's all I want to know. A certain discredit has always attached to cuckolds. Very properly. A man ought to be able to keep his wife." Macmaster exclaimed anxiously: "No! No! Chrissie." Tietjens continued: "And a first-class public office is very like a public school. It might very well object to having a man whose wife had bolted amongst its members. I remember Clifton hated it when the Governors decided to admit the first Jew and the first nigger." Macmaster said: "I wish you wouldn't go on." "There was a fellow," Tietjens continued, "whose land was next to ours. Conder his name was. His wife was habitually unfaithful to him. She used to retire with some fellow for three months out of every year. Conder never moved a finger. But we felt Groby and the neighbourhood were unsafe. It was awkward introducing him--not to mention her--in your drawing-room. All sorts of awkwardnesses. Everyone knew the younger children weren't Conder's. A fellow married the youngest daughter and took over the hounds. And not a soul called on her. It wasn't rational or just. But that's why society distrusts the cuckold, really. It never knows when it mayn't be driven into something irrational and unjust." "But you _aren't_," Macmaster said with real anguish, "going to let Sylvia behave like that." "I don't know," Tietjens said. "How am I to stop it? Mind you, I think Conder was quite right. Such calamities are the will of God. A gentleman accepts them. If the woman won't divorce, he _must_ accept them, and it get's talked about. You seem to have made it all right this time. You and, I suppose, Mrs. Satterthwaite between you. But you won't be always there. Or I might come across another woman." Macmaster said: