'In electing to be married in the wilds of Wales,' he remarked as he lit his cigarette, 'our friends the Newtons have shown a consideration not only for our wardrobes--a point with which, I admit, I was preoccupied--but also for our feelings. Yet we, by subscribing a shilling each towards a wire, deliberately threw away the main advantage of the telegraphic system. We could have expressed our aspirations for sixpence; as it is, we were led into something perilously like discussion. Finally, at Mrs. John's urgent request, and in order not to have sixpence left on our hands, we committed ourselves to the audacious statement that we had foreseen it from the first.' 'So I did--since Airey's dinner,' declared Mrs. John stoutly. 'A delusion of your trade, Mrs. John. For my part I hope I have something better to do than go about foreseeing people's marriages.' 'Something different, old fellow,' Arty suggested, with an air of being anxious to guard the niceties of the language. 'I wonder if I could write a story about her,' mused Mrs. John, unusually talkative. 'I have so often told Mrs. John in print--anonymously, of course, because of our friendship--that she can't write a story about anything, that I sha'n't discuss the particular case. As a general principle, I object to books about failures. Manson, do you take an interest in humble tragedies?' 'Only in a brief marked two and one,' said Manson Smith. 'Exactly! Or in a par at seven-and-six.' 'Or perhaps in a little set of verses--thrown off,' murmured Arty Kane. 'Who's talking about tragedies?' called Peggy from the other end. 'Elfreda and Horace are splendidly happy. So will Trix and Airey be.' 'And--I am sorry to mention it,' smiled Tommy Trent, 'but the latter couple will also be uncommonly well off.' 'The only touch of poetry the thing ever had, gone out of it!' grumbled Arty resentfully. 'Listen to the voice of the Philistine!' advised Miles, pointing at Tommy. 'For the humiliating reason that he's generally right.' 'No!' ejaculated Mrs. John firmly. 'That is, we shall all come to think him right. Time will corrupt us. We shall sink into marriage, merit, middle age, and, conceivably, money. In a few years we sha'n't be able to make out for the lives of us what the dickens the young fools do want.' 'Is this a _séance_?' demanded Arty Kane indignantly. 'If the veil of the future is going to be lifted, I'm off home.' 'Fancy bothering about what we shall be in ten years!' cried Peggy scornfully, 'when such a lot of fine things are sure to happen in between! Besides, I don't believe that anything of the sort need happen at all.' The idea rather scandalised Mrs. John. It seemed to cut at the root of a scientific view of life--a thing that she flattered herself might with due diligence be discovered in her published, and was certainly to be developed in her projected, works. 'Experience, dear Peggy----' she began, with a gently authoritative air.