Club had failed, and
attributed the failure to the fact that it did not go on paying. Nothing
does go on paying. I know I don't."

"I hate offering payment to anybody," said Reggie. "Even when I have the
money. There is something so sordid about it. To give is beautiful. I
said so to my tailor yesterday. He answered, 'I differ from you, sir,
_in toto_.' How horrible this spread of education is! We shall have
our valets quoting Horace at us soon. I am told there is a Scotch
hairdresser in Bond Street who speaks French like a native."

"Of Scotland or France?"

"Oh! France."

"Then he must have a bad pronunciation. A native's pronunciation of his
language is invariably incorrect. That is why the average Parisian is
totally unintelligible to the intelligent foreigner. All foreigners are
intelligent. Ah! here are our devilled kidneys. I suppose you and I are
devilled, Reggie. People say we are so wicked. I wish one could feel
wicked; but it is only good people who can manage to do that. It is the
one prerogative of virtue that I really envy. The saint always feel like
a sinner, and the poor sinner, try as he will, can only feel like a
saint. The stars are so unjust. These kidneys are delicious. They are as
poetic as one of Turner's later sunsets, or as the curving mouth of La
Gioconda. How Walter Pater would love them."

Reggie helped himself to a glass of champagne. A bright spot of red had
appeared on each of his cheeks, and his blue eyes began to sparkle.

"Are you going to get drunk to-night, Esme?" he asked. "You are so
splendid when you are drunk."

"I have not decided either way. I never do. I let it come if it will.
To get drunk deliberately is as foolish as to get sober by accident. Do
you know my brother? When he is not tipsy, he is invariably blind sober.
I often wonder the police do not run him in."

"Do they ever run any one in? I thought they were always dismissed the
force if they did."

"Probably that is so. The expected always happens, and people in
authority are very expected. One always knows that they will act in
defiance of the law. Laws are made in order that people in authority may
not remember them, just as marriages are made in order that the divorce
court may not play about idly. Reggie, are you going to make this
marriage?"

"I don't know," said the boy, rather fretfully. "Do you want me to?"

"I never want any one to do anything. And I should be delighted to
continue not paying for