comradeship. Stuff and nonsense, my boy! A man doesn't want to talk
politics to his wife, and what do you think I care for Betty's views upon
the Differential Calculus? A man wants a wife who can cook his dinner and
look after his children. I've tried both and I know. Let's have the
pudding in."

He clapped his hands and presently Sally came. When she took away the
plates, Philip wanted to get up and help her, but Athelny stopped him.

"Let her alone, my boy. She doesn't want you to fuss about, do you, Sally?
And she won't think it rude of you to sit still while she waits upon you.
She don't care a damn for chivalry, do you, Sally?"

"No, father," answered Sally demurely.

"Do you know what I'm talking about, Sally?"

"No, father. But you know mother doesn't like you to swear."

Athelny laughed boisterously. Sally brought them plates of rice pudding,
rich, creamy, and luscious. Athelny attacked his with gusto.

"One of the rules of this house is that Sunday dinner should never alter.
It is a ritual. Roast beef and rice pudding for fifty Sundays in the year.
On Easter Sunday lamb and green peas, and at Michaelmas roast goose and
apple sauce. Thus we preserve the traditions of our people. When Sally
marries she will forget many of the wise things I have taught her, but she
will never forget that if you want to be good and happy you must eat on
Sundays roast beef and rice pudding."

"You'll call when you're ready for cheese," said Sally impassively.

"D'you know the legend of the halcyon?" said Athelny: Philip was growing
used to his rapid leaping from one subject to another. "When the
kingfisher, flying over the sea, is exhausted, his mate places herself
beneath him and bears him along upon her stronger wings. That is what a
man wants in a wife, the halcyon. I lived with my first wife for three
years. She was a lady, she had fifteen hundred a year, and we used to give
nice little dinner parties in our little red brick house in Kensington.
She was a charming woman; they all said so, the barristers and their wives
who dined with us, and the literary stockbrokers, and the budding
politicians; oh, she was a charming woman. She made me go to church in a
silk hat and a frock coat, she took me to classical concerts, and she was
very fond of lectures on Sunday afternoon; and she sat down to breakfast
every morning at eight-thirty, and if I was late breakfast was cold; and
she read the right books, admired the right pictu