"Upon my word, I can hardly tell you," replied Tait, after some cogitation. "It is a kind of impressionist school, I fancy. Those who profess to lead it insist upon works having no plot, and no action, or no dramatic situations. Their idea of a work is for a man and woman--both vaguely denominated 'he' and 'she'--to talk to one another through a few hundred pages. Good Lord, how they do talk, and all about their own feelings, their own woes, their own troubles, their own infernal egotisms! The motto of 'The New Literature' should be 'Talk! talk! talk!' for it consists of nothing else." "Why not adopt Hamlet's recitation," suggested Larcher laughingly, "'Words! words! words!'" "Oh, 'The New Literature' wants nothing from the past! Not even a quotation," said Tait tartly. "Woman--the new woman--is greatly to the fore in this latest fancy. She writes about neurotic members of her own sex, and calls men bad names every other page. The subjects mostly discussed in the modern novel by the modern woman, are the regeneration of the world by woman, the failure of the male to bridle his appetites, and the beginning of the millennium which will come when women get their own way." "Haven't they got their own way now?" "I should think so. I don't know what further freedom they want. We live in a world of petticoats nowadays. Women pervade everything like microbes. And they are such worrying creatures," pursued Tait plaintively, "they don't take things calmly like men do, but talk and rage and go into hysterics every other minute. If this sort of thing goes on I shall retire with Dormer to an uninhabited island." "It is easily seen that you are not a friend to the new movement," said Larcher, with a smile, "but here we are. Wait in the smoke room, like a good fellow, while I see after my correspondence." "You will find me in the writing room," replied Tait. "I have lost my morning pipe, and do not intend to smoke any more till after luncheon." "I don't believe you're a man, Tait, but a clockwork figure wound up to act in the same manner at the same moment. And you are such a horribly vulgar piece of mechanism." Tait laughed, gratified by this tribute to his methodical habits, so, leaving Larcher to see after his letters, he vanished into the writing room. Here he wrote an apologetic telegram to his friend Freak, and sent it off so that it might reach that gentleman before he started for Richmond. Then he scribbled a few notes on various trifling matters of business which called for immediate attention, and having thus disposed of his cares, ensconced himself in a comfortable armchair to wait for Claude. In a few minutes Larcher made his appearance with a puzzled expression on his face, and two open letters in his hand. Taking a seat close to that of Tait, he at once began to explain that the news contained in the letters was the cause of the expression aforesaid.