‘You forget, there’s the new photography; you could photograph his interior while he’s alive!’ ‘By Jove! I never thought of that!’ cried the doctor, joyfully; ‘Of course! I’ll have it done when the disease has made a little more progress. It will be extremely instructive!’ ‘It will,’ said Valdis. ‘Especially if you reproduce it in the journals, and call it “Portrait of a Lampooner’s Interior under Process of Destruction by the Microbes of Disappointment and Envy.”’ ‘Good! good!’ chuckled Dalley, ‘And, my dear Valdis, how would you like a photo entitled, “Portrait of a Distinguished Actor’s Imaginative Organism consumed by the Fires of a Hopeless Love?”’ Valdis coloured violently, and anon grew pale. ‘You are an old friend of mine, Dalley,’ he said slowly, ‘but you may go too far!’ ‘So I may, and so I have!’ returned the little doctor, penitently, and with an abashed look. ‘Forgive me, my dear boy; I’ve been guilty of a piece of impertinence, and I’m sorry! There! But I should like a few words with you alone, if you don’t mind. It’s Sunday night; you can’t go and be “Ernani.” Will you waste a few minutes of your company on me—outside these premises, where the very walls have ears?’ Valdis assented, and in a few minutes they left the club together. With their departure there was a slight stir among the men in the room, who were reading, smoking, and drinking whisky and water. ‘I wish she’d take up with him!’ growled one man, whose head was half hidden behind a _Referee_. ‘Why the devil doesn’t she play the fool like other women?’ ‘Whom are you speaking of?’ inquired a stout personage, who was busy correcting his critical notes on a new play which had been acted for the first time the previous evening. ‘Delicia Vaughan—Lady Carlyon,’ answered the first man. ‘Valdis is infatuated with her. Why she doesn’t go over to him, I can’t imagine; a writing female need not be more particular than a dancing female, I should say they’re both public characters, and Carlyon has thrown himself down as a free gift at the feet of La Marina, so there’s no obstacle in the way, except the woman’s own extraordinary “cussedness.”’ ‘What good would it do you that she should “go over,” as you call it, to Valdis?’ inquired the stout scribbler, dubiously, biting the end of his pencil. ‘Good? Why, none to me in particular,’ said the other, ‘but it would drag her down! Don’t you see? It would prove to the idiotic public, that is just now running after her as if she were a goddess, that she is only the usual frail stuff of which women are made. I should like that! I confess I should like it! I like women to keep in their places—’ ‘That is, on the down grade,’ suggested the stout gentleman, still dubiously.