"Damn the fellow," I muttered. "Now he's calmly shifting the responsibility on to me." And I swore a deep oath that nevermore would I interfere in anybody else's affairs, not even if Bolshevist butchers were playing with him before my very eyes. There, my dear Hylton (the letter went on), you gave away the key of the situation. My judgment had been unerring. As Petit Patou, our friend stood beyond the pale. As General Lackaday, he stepped into all the privileges of the Enclosure. Bound by such ties to Madame Patou as an honourable and upright gentleman like our friend could not d of severing, he was likewise bound to his vain and heart-breaking existence as Petit Patou. A free man, he could cast off his mountebank trappings and go forth into the world, once more as General Lackaday, the social equal of the gracious lady whom he loved and whose feelings towards him, as eyes far less careless than ours could see at a glance, were not those of placid indifference. The solution of the problem dawned on me like an inspiration. Why not sacrifice my not over-valued celibacy on the altar of friendship? For years Elodie and I have been, _en lout bien et tout honneur_, the most intimate of comrades. I don't say that, for all the gold in the Indies, I would not marry a woman out of my brother's Archdeaco If she asked me, I probably should. But I should most certainly, such being my unregenerate nature, run away with the gold and leave the lady. For respectability to have attraction you must be bred in You must regard the dog collar and chain as the great and God-given blessing of your life. The old fable of the dog and the wolf. But I've lived my life, till past fifty, as the disreputable wolf--and so, please God, will I remain till I die. But, after all, being human, I'm quite a kind sort of wolf. Thanks to my brother--no longer will hunger drive the wolf abroad. You remember Villon's lines: "Necessité fait gens mesprendre Et faim sortir le loup des boys." I shall live in plethoric ease my elderly vulpine life. But the elderly wolf needs a mate for his old age, who is at one with him in his (entirely unsinful) habits of disrepute. Where in this universe, then, could I find a fitter mate than Elodie? Which brings me back, although I'm aware of glaring psychological flaws, to my Touchstone and Audrey prelude. Writing, as I am doing, in a devil of a hurry, I don't pretend to Meredithean analysis.