“Madam,” he said, “I am a writer of whose importance I have not as yet been able to persuade the public. The way I should naturally have gone to-night seemed to me something to avoid. I took another, which brought me here. The charm of existence--” She seemed curiously attentive. “The charm of existence is the unforeseen, and of all things our moods are the most unforeseen. One's plans are not always and altogether futile. If you propose to have salad for lunch, and see your way to it, it is not so improbable that you will have salad for lunch. But if you prefigure how it will all seem to you at lunch, you are never quite right. Man proposes and God disposes. I add that there is a third and final disposal, namely, what man is to think of the disposition after it is made. I hope, since you proposed or prefigured to-night, perhaps as I did, something different from this--this disposition”--he lifted his glass of claret between him and the light--“that your disposition what to think of it is, perhaps, something like mine.” The lady was leaning forward with parted lips, listening intently, absorbed in his words. For the life of him Noel could not see why she should be absorbed in his words, but the fact filled him with happy pride. “Tell me,” she said quickly. “You speak so well--” Noel filled in her pause of hesitation. “That means that my wisdom may be all in my mouth.” “No, indeed! I mean you must have experience. Will you tell me, is it so dreadful not to have money? People say different things.” “They do.” He felt elevated, borne along on a wave of ornamental expression. “It is their salvation. Their common proverbs contradict each other. A man looks after his pence and trusts one proverb that the pounds will look after themselves, till presently he is called penny wise and pound foolish, and brought up by another. And consider how less noticeable life would be without its jostle of opinion, its conflicting lines of wisdom, its following of one truth to meet with another going a different way. Give me for finest companionship some half truth, some ironic veracity.” She shook her head. It came to him with a shock that it was not his ornamental expression which interested her, but only as it might bear on something in her own mind more simple, direct and serious, something not yet disclosed. “In fact,” he thought, “she is right. One must get on with the plot” It was a grievous literary fault to break continuity, to be led away from the issue by niceties of expression. The proper issue of a plot was simple, direct, serious, drawn from the motive which began it. Why did she sit here with her jewels, her white arms and black dress these weird, still hours of the night? Propriety hinted his withdrawal, but one must resist the commonplace.