have experimented with
absinthe, but gained no result. I have read the collected works of
Walter Besant. They are said to sap the mental powers. They did not sap
mine. Opium has proved useless, and green tea cigarettes leave me
positively brilliant. What am I to do? I so long for the lethargy, the
sweet peace of stupidity. If only I were Lewis Morris!"

"Unfortunate man! You should treat your complaint with the knife. Become
a popular author."

She laughed without smiling, an uncanny habit of hers, and turned to the
window.

"I hear Mr. Smith saying that he must go," she said.

Mrs. Windsor rustled forward to speed the parting guest.

That night Esme said to Reggie in the smoking room--

"Reggie, Lady Locke will marry you if you ask her."

"I suppose so," the boy said.

"Shall you ask her?"

"I suppose so. Mr. Smith is going to do my anthem on Sunday."

They lit their cigarettes.

IX.

"Mother," said Tommy with exceeding great frankness, "I love Lord
Reggie."

"My dear boy," Lady Locke said, "what a sudden affection! Why, to-day is
only Friday, and you never met him until Wednesday. That is quick work."

"It's very easy," answered Tommy. "It doesn't take any time. Why should
it?"

"Well, we generally get to like people very much gradually. We find out
what they are by degrees, and consider whether they are worth caring
for."

"I don't," said Tommy. "Directly he came to play at ball with me I loved
him. Why shouldn't I?"

"Tommy, you are very direct," his mother cried, laughing. "Now you have
finished breakfast, run out into the garden. I heard Mr. Smith's boys
just now. I expect they are in the paddock."

"Athanasius doesn't play cricket badly," Tommy remarked meditatively,
"only he caught a ball once on his spectacles. Lord Reggie would never
have done that."

"Lord Reggie doesn't wear spectacles," said his mother.

Tommy looked at her seriously for a minute, as if he were taking in the
relevance of this contention. Then he said--

"No, he's not such a bunger," and dashed off towards the paddock.

"Where does he get those words?" thought Lady Locke to herself,
preparing to go to her own breakfast.

She found Lord Reggie alone in the room reading his letters. He was
dressed in loose white flannel, and in the buttonhole of his thin jacket
a big green carnation was stuck. It looked perfectly fresh.

"How do you manage to keep that flower alive so long?" asked Lady Locke,
as they s