rd, and see all that was to be seen. An
obsequious waiter--one of the restaurant race that has no native
language--relieved them of their coats, and they sat down opposite to
each other, mechanically touching their hair to feel if their hats had
ruffled its smooth surface.

"What do you think about it, Reggie?" Amarinth said, as they began to
discuss their oysters. "Could you commit the madness of matrimony with
Lady Locke? You are so wonderful as you are, so complete in yourself,
that I scarcely dare to wish it, or anything else for you: and you live
so comfortably upon debts, that it might be unwise to risk the possible
discomfort of having money. Still, if you ever intend to possess it, you
had better not waste time. You know my theory about money."

"No; what is it, Esme?"

"I believe that money is gradually becoming extinct, like the Dodo or
'Dodo.' It is vanishing off the face of the earth. Soon we shall have
people writing to the papers to say that money has been seen at
Richmond, or the man who always announces the premature advent of the
cuckoo to his neighbourhood will communicate the fact that one Spring
day he heard two capitalists singing in a wood near Esher. One hears now
that money is tight--a most vulgar condition to be in by the way; one
will hear in the future that money is not. Then we shall barter, offer
glass beads for a lunch, or sell our virtue for a good dinner. Do you
want money?"

Reggie was eating delicately, with his fair head drooping on one side,
and his blue eyes wandering in a fidgety way about the room.

"I suppose I do," he said. "But, as you say, I am afraid of spoiling
myself, of altering myself. And yet marriage has not changed you."

"I have not allowed it to. My wife began by trying to influence me, she
has ended by trying not to be influenced by me. She is a good woman,
Reggie, and wears large hats. Why do good women invariably wear large
hats? To show they have large hearts? No, I am unchanged. That is really
the secret of my pre-eminence. I never develop. I was born epigrammatic,
and my dying remark will be a paradox. How splendid to die with a
paradox upon one's lips! Most people depart in a cloud of blessings and
farewells, or give up the ghost arranging their affairs like a huckster,
or endeavouring to cut somebody off with a shilling. I at least cannot
be so vulgar as to do that, for I have not a shilling in the world. Some
one told me the other day that the Narcissus