“How do, Delalune?” he said to the man in the corner. “Damned hot, Bellows,” he remarked to me, subsiding creakily. She poured some more hot water into the teapot. (Why must charming married women always have these husbands?) “It _is_ very hot,” I said. There was a perceptible pause. He is one of those rather adipose people, who are not disconcerted by conversational gaps. “Are _you_, too, working at Argon?” I said. He is some kind of chemical investigator, I know. He began at once to explain the most horribly complex things about elements to me. She gave him his tea, and rose and went and talked to the other people about autotypes. “Yes,” I said, not hearing what he was saying. “‘No’ would be more appropriate,” he said. “You are absent-minded, Bellows. Not in love, I hope—at your age?” Really, I am not thirty, but a certain perceptible thinness in my hair may account for his invariably regarding me as a contemporary. But he should understand that nowadays the beginnings of baldness merely mark the virile epoch. “I say, Millie,” he said, out loud and across the room, “you haven’t been collecting Bellows here—have you?” She looked round startled, and I saw a pained look come into her eyes. “For the bazaar?” she said. “Not yet, dear.” It seemed to me that she shot a glance of entreaty at him. Then she turned to the others again. “My wife,” he said, “has two distinctive traits. She is a born poetess and a born collector. I ought to warn you.” “I did not know,” said I, “that she rhymed.” “I was speaking more of the imaginative quality, the temperament that finds a splendour in the grass, a glory in the flower, that clothes the whole world in a vestiture of interpretation.” “Indeed!” I said. I felt she was watching us anxiously. He could not, of course, suspect. But I was relieved to fancy he was simply talking nonsense. “The magnificent figures of heroic, worshipful, and mysterious womanhood naturally appeal to her—Cleopatra, Messalina, Beatrice, the Madonna, and so forth.” “And she is writing—” “No, she is acting. That is the real poetry of women and children. A platonic Cleopatra of infinite variety, spotless reputation, and a large following. Her make-believe is wonderful. She would use Falstaff for Romeo without a twinge, if no one else was at hand. She could exert herself to break the heart of a soldier. I assure you, Bellows—” I heard her dress rustle behind me. “I want some more tea,” he said to her. “You misunderstood me about the collecting, Millie.” “What were you saying about Cleopatra?” she said, trying, I think, to look sternly at him. “Scandal,” he said. “But about the collecting, Bellows—” “You must come to this bazaar,” she interrupted. “I shall be delighted,” I said, boldly. “Where is it, and when?” “About this collecting,” he began.