rdigan, but they've got more
opportunity."

The saying, so cryptically cynical, received a little laugh from Imogen,
a slight opening of Jack Cardigan's mouth, and a creak from Soames'
chair.

Winifred said: "That's too bad, Prosper."

"What do you say, Mrs. Forsyde; don't you think human nature's always the
same?"

Soames subdued a sudden longing to get up and kick the fellow. He heard
his wife reply:

"Human nature is not the same in England as anywhere else." That was her
confounded mockery!

"Well, I don't know much about this small country"--'No, thank God!'
thought Soames--"but I should say the pot was boilin' under the lid
everywhere. We all want pleasure, and we always did."

Damn the fellow! His cynicism was--was outrageous!

When lunch was over they broke up into couples for the digestive
promenade. Too proud to notice, Soames knew perfectly that Annette and
that fellow had gone prowling round together. Fleur was with Val; she
had chosen him, no doubt, because he knew that boy. He himself had
Winifred for partner. They walked in the bright, circling stream, a
little flushed and sated, for some minutes, till Winifred sighed:

"I wish we were back forty years, old boy!"

Before the eyes of her spirit an interminable procession of her own
"Lord's" frocks was passing, paid for with the money of her father, to
save a recurrent crisis. "It's been very amusing, after all. Sometimes I
even wish Monty was back. What do you think of people nowadays, Soames?"

"Precious little style. The thing began to go to pieces with bicycles
and motor-cars; the War has finished it."

"I wonder what's coming?" said Winifred in a voice dreamy from
pigeon-pie. "I'm not at all sure we shan't go back to crinolines and
pegtops. Look at that dress!"

Soames shook his head.

"There's money, but no faith in things. We don't lay by for the future.
These youngsters--it's all a short life and a merry one with them."

"There's a hat!" said Winifred. "I don't know--when you come to think of
the people killed and all that in the War, it's rather wonderful, I
think. There's no other country--Prosper says the rest are all bankrupt,
except America; and of course her men always took their style in dress
from us."

"Is that chap," said Soames, "really going to the South Seas?"

"Oh! one never knows where Prosper's going!"

"He's a sign of the times," muttered Soames, "if you like."

Winifred's hand gripped his a