“The man is dead; and I wouldn’t have you think me so wanting in decency as to speak harshly of a dead man. But the fact remains that that man must have been one of the world’s biggest liars, a liar of inconceivable genius and magnitude, a liar beside whom Ananias would have been a saint, Cagliostro a child, and Barry Lyndon a novice. As for Casanova, I simply hate to think how small he would have felt beside that dear, dead, faithful husband. I have told you how, throughout the time I knew him, I was not even aware that he was married; but there was not only nothing in his conversation, but there was less than nothing in his behaviour, to indicate that he had a wife in England for whose company he was passionately longing. I may say that I have never yet met a man who gave the appearance of passionately longing for his own wife less. I had nothing against him, mind you; he was a charming bachelor, a gay companion, and, if you will permit a small vulgarity, could resist a pretty woman about as much as a mouse can resist a cheese. He was certainly a shining light among the crude passions let loose by war; in fact, he shone magnificently; and a patriotic element in me was, in a dim kind of way, only too pleased to see him at it, for Frenchmen are nowadays so uppish about their talents at _le Sport_, what with one thing and another, that it was pleasant to see an Englishman teaching them a thing or two about the one which, with boxing, they are most cocksure about. By the way, Lord Tarlyon, I wonder if you will agree with me when I suggest that this modern fashion among Englishwomen of decrying Englishmen as lovers in comparison to foreigners is not only getting very tedious but is, so I heard in a discussion on the matter with a student of my acquaintance, entirely without foundation in fact?” “Our friend Trevor,” said Tarlyon, with a sombre nod, “has been actively engaged in propaganda to that effect for some time: and with, I am told, no small measure of success.” “I am sincerely glad to hear that, Mr. Trevor; for it is by the accumulation of such small cancerous growths, perhaps scarcely significant in themselves but considerable in their rolling together, that the heart of an Empire is affected and its body grows rotten. The Dominion of Canada looks to you gentlemen of England to combat such insidious errors, which may seem harmless enough as part of the merry prattle of young ladies, but are, I am persuaded, detrimental to our particular civilisation. However....” Mr. Fall waved aside our particular civilisation for the time being, and lit another cigar. He continued: