“The chances are you will never congratulate me as either,” said Edgar, with a certain wayward pathos which puzzled himself; “I am not going to marry, and I don’t intend to go into Parliament. I should not be much credit to you in that way; I should go in for impracticable measures, and call a spade a spade. Let me tame down first, and get used to parliamentary language and all the other fictions of life----” “My dear fellow, I wish you were not so bitter about the fictions of life,” said Lord Newmarch, shaking his head. “Bitter!” said Edgar, with a laugh. “Well, if not bitter, cynical--cynical--perhaps that is a better word. I have been thinking a great deal about what you said the other day, and I don’t think there is much in it. Society must be kept up--some sacrifice must be made to keep up that fine atmosphere--that air so sensitive to everything that comes into it--that brilliant, witty, refined----” “Newmarch,” said another young man, lounging up, “where were you that one couldn’t see you at the Strathfeldsays’ dance the other night? Awful bore! Never was at anything much worse all my life--the women all frights and the men all notabilities. Ah, Arden, I never see you anywhere now. Where has the t’other Arden gone--Arthur Arden--that one used to meet about? He used to be always with the Lowestofts. Lowestoft wouldn’t stand it at the last. Deuced bore! Some men are insufferable in that way. Pull you up short, whether you mean anything or not, and spoil the whole affair. Been doing anything in the House?--Education Bill, and that sort of thing. Hang education! What is the good of it? What has it ever done for you or me?” “What, indeed!” cried Edgar--a backing which was received with the warmth it merited. “Eton and Christchurch are reckoned pretty well,” said their new companion; “but I don’t know what they ever did for me. And as for those confounded fellows that never wash and have votes, what do they want with it? Depend upon it, they are a great deal better without. Teaches them to be discontented; then teaches you to humbug and tell lies for them to read in the newspapers. By the way, where are you going to-night? I’ve got some men coming to dine with me. Will you make one--or, rather, will you make two, if Arden likes? Then there is that deuced affair on at the Bodmillers’ which I suppose I shall have to look in upon; and the Chromatics are giving a grand concert, with Squallini and Whiskerando. Little Squallini is worth listening to, I can tell you. There are heaps of things I never attempt, and one is, going to musical nights promiscuous, not knowing what you’re to hear. But the Chromatics know what is what. Going? I shall look out somebody, and have a rubber till five. These concerts and things are a confounded bore.”