e Valtesi," pleaded Mrs. Windsor.

"No, thank you. I never take more than one cup on principle--the
principle being that the first cup is the best, like the last word. I
want to take a stroll round the rose garden, if I may. Mr. Amarinth,
will you come with me?"

She added in an undertone to him, as they walked slowly away together--

"I always hate to see people drinking when I have finished. It makes me
feel like a barmaid."

VI.

Lady Locke and Lord Reggie were left alone together for the time. Mrs.
Windsor had gone into the cottage to write a note, asking the curate of
Chenecote to dine the next day. She always asked the curate to dine
during the Surrey week. She thought it made things so deliciously
rustic. Lord Reggie was still looking very tired, and eating a great
many strawberries. He did both mechanically, and as if he didn't know he
was doing them. As Lady Locke glanced at him, she felt that he certainly
fulfilled her expectations, so far as being cool and young went. His
round baby collar seemed to take off quite five years from his age, and
his straw hat, with its black riband, suited him very well. Only the
glaring green carnation offended her sight. She longed to ask him why he
wore it. But she felt she had no right to. So she watched him looking
tired and eating strawberries, until he glanced up at her with his
pretty blue eyes.

"These strawberries are very good," he said. "I should finish them,
only I hate finishing anything. There is something so commonplace about
it. Don't you think so? Commonplace people are always finishing off
things, and getting through things. They map out their days, and have
special hours for everything. I should like to have special hours for
nothing. That would be much more original."

"You are very fond of originality?"

"Are not you?"

"I don't quite know. Perhaps I have not met many original people in my
life. You see I have been out of England a great deal, and out of
cities. I have lived almost entirely among soldiers."

"Soldiers are never original. They think it is unmanly. I once spent a
week with the commander of one of our armies of occupation, and I never
heard the same remarks so often in all my life. They thought everything
was an affectation. Once, when I mentioned Matthew Arnold at the mess,
they thought he was an affectation."

"Oh, surely not."

"They did, really. I explained that he had been a school-inspector. I
thought that might r