e fell, as fellow-travellers
generally do, upon old stories of the ways of the world we had seen. He
had taken wider ranges than my duties had ever entailed on me.

Autumn was cooling to winter; it was early November when we met.

"I have been," he said, "killing time and birds pleasantly enough in
Sussex."

Mrs. Daker overheard him, and smiled. Then we shifted carelessly, as far
as I was concerned, away. He continued--

"And now we're off on the usual tramp. My wife wants a warm winter, and
so do I, for the matter of that."

"Nice?" I asked.

A very decided "no" was the answer.

"I shall find some little sleepy Italian country-place, where we shall
lay up like dormice, and just give King Frost the go-by for once. Are
you bound south?"

"Only to Paris--as prosaic a journey as any cotton-spinner could
desire."

"Always plenty to be done in Paris," Daker said; "at least I have never
felt at a loss. But it's a bachelor's paradise."

"And a wife's," I interposed.

"Not a husband's, you think?" Daker asked, turning the end of his
moustache very tight. "I agree with you."

"I have no experience; but I have an opinion, which I have been at some
pains to gather--French society spoils our simple English women."

"Most decidedly," said Daker.

"They are too simple and too affectionate for the artificial,
diplomatic--shall I say heartless?--society of the salons. Their ears
burn at first at the conversation. They are presented to people who
would barely be tolerated in the upper circles of South Bank, St. John's
Wood."

"You are right; I know it well," said Daker, very earnestly, but
resuming his normal air of liveliness in an instant. "It's a bad
atmosphere, but decidedly amusing. The _esprit_ of a good salon is
delicious--nothing short of it. I like to bathe in it: it just suits me,
though I can't contribute much to it. We Englishmen are not alert enough
in mind to hold our own against our nimble neighbours. We shall never
fence, nor dance, nor rally one another as they can. We are men who
don't know how to be children. It's a great pity!"

"I am not so sure of that," was the opinion I uttered. "We should lose
something deeper and better. We don't enjoy life--that is, the art of
living--as they do; but we reach deeper joys."

Daker smiled, and protested playfully--

"We are running into a subject that would carry us far, if we would let
it. I only know I wish I were a Frenchman with all my heart, and I'm