I agreed, though once again surprised at Jellaby’s baseness. “I can’t think,” continued Frau von Eckthum--“I suppose it’s because I am so bad--but I really cannot think how she can endure him, and in such doses.” “He is undoubtedly,” said Jellaby, “a very grievous bounder.” “What,” I wondered, “is a bounder?” But I applauded Jellaby’s sentiment nevertheless, for there was no mistaking its nature, though his baseness was really amazing. “It must be because Di has such a vivid imagination,” continued her sister musingly. “She sees what he might have been, what he probably was meant to be----” “And what he would still be,” put in Jellaby, “if only he would allow his nice wife to influence him a little.” “But John,” thought I, “in that is right. Let us be fair and admit his good sides. A wife should never, under any circumstances, be allowed allowed----” Then, suddenly struck by the point of view, by the feminine idea (Socialists have the minds of women) of a man’s being restored to what he was primarily intended to be when he issued newly-made (as poets and parsons would say) from the hands of his Maker through the manipulations of Mrs. Menzies-Legh, my sense of humour played me a nasty trick (for I would have liked to have heard more) and I found myself bursting into a loud chuckle. “What’s that?” exclaimed Jellaby, jumping up. He soon saw what it was, for I immediately put my head round the edge of the pillar. They both stared at me in a strange alarm. “Pray do not suppose,” I said, smiling reassuringly, “that I am a ghost.” They stared without a word. “You look as though I might be.” They went on staring. “I could not help, as I sat here, hearing what you were saying.” They stared as speechless as though they had been caught killing somebody. “I really am not a spirit,” said I, getting up. “Look--do I look like one?” And striking a match I playfully passed it backward and forward across my features. But its light at the same time showed me a flush of the most attractive and vivid crimson on Frau von Eckthum’s face, colouring it from her hair to her throat. She looked so beautiful like that, she who was ordinarily white, that immediately lighting another I gazed at her in undisguised admiration. “Pardon me,” I said, holding it very near her while her eyes, fixed on mine, still seemed full of superstitious terror, “pardon me, but I must as a man and a judge look at you.” Jellaby, however, unforgivably ill-bred as ever, knocked the match out of my hand and stamped on it. “Look here, Baron,” he said with unusual heat, “I am very sorry--as sorry as you like, but you really mustn’t hold matches in front of somebody’s face.” “Why sorry, Jellaby?” I inquired mildly, for I was not going to have a scene. “I do not mind about the match. I have more.” “Sorry, of course, that you should have heard----” “Every word, Jellaby,” said I. “I tell you I’m frightfully sorry--I can’t tell you how sorry----”