No doubt you, gentle reader, have fallen asleep over this conversation. I understand perfectly that it is beyond you; for you have no conception of the deep underlying principles of the relations of men and men or men and women. But there may be among my readers a few who will see interest and importance in this talk with Armitage. It is time the writers of stories concerned themselves with the realities of life instead of with the showy and sensational things that obscure or hide the realities. What would you think of the physiologist who issued a treatise on physiology with no mention or account of the blood? Yet you read stories about what purports to be life with no mention or account of money--this, when in any society money is the all-important factor. Put aside, if you can, the prejudices of your miseducation and æsthetics, of your false culture and your false refinement, open your mind, _think_, and you will see that I am right. When we were well down toward the end of the Park, Armitage said: “Pardon me a direct question. Have you and your wife separated?” “No,” said I. “She has gone abroad to round out Margot’s education--and her own.” “You know what that means?” “In a general way,” replied I. “I’m letting them amuse themselves. They don’t need me, nor I them. Perhaps when they come back--” I did not finish my sentence. He laughed. “That means you don’t really care what happens when they come back.” My smile was an admission of the correctness of his guess. We dropped our domestic affairs and took up the matters that were more interesting and more important to us.