know, Campion, you have grown very cynical of late?" said Brooke
Dalton, rather more gravely than usual. "I have been rather disposed to
take some blame to myself for my share in the heartless kind of talk
that used to go on at the Oligarchy. I and Pynsent were your sponsors
there, I remember. You may think this an odd thing to say, but the fact
is I am becoming something of a fogy, I suppose, in my ideas, and I
daresay you'll tell me that the change is not for the better."

"I don't know about that," said Sydney, lightly. "Perhaps it is for the
better, after all. You see, _you_ are now laying yourself out to
persuade your fellowmen that you can cure them of all the ills that
flesh is heir to! But I'll tell you what I have noticed, old man, and
what others beside me have noticed. We miss you up in town. You never
come to the Club now. The men say you must be ill, or married, or
breaking up, or under petticoat government--all stuff and nonsense, you
know; but that is what they say."

"They can't be all right," said Brooke, with a rather embarrassed laugh,
"but some of them may be." He made a perfectly needless excursion across
the room to fetch a cue from the rack that he did not want, while Sydney
smoked on and watched him with amused and rather curious eyes. "I
suppose I am a little under petticoat government," said Dalton,
examining his cue with interest, and then laying it down on the table,
"as you may see for yourself. But my sister manages everything so
cleverly that I don't mind answering to the reins and letting her get me
well in hand."

"No one ever had a better excuse for submitting to petticoat government.
But you know what is always thought of a man when he begins to give up
his club."

"I am afraid it can't be helped. Then again--perhaps there is another
reason. Edith, you know, has a little place of her own, about a mile
from here, and she tells me that she will not keep house for me much
longer--even to rescue me from club life. The fact is, she wants me to
marry."

"Oh, now I see it all; you have let the cat out the bag! And you are
going to humor her in that, too?"

"Well, I hardly think I should marry just to humor my sister. But--who
knows? She is always at me, and a continual dropping----"

"Wears away the stony heart of Brooke Dalton. Why, what a converted
clubbist you will be!"

"There was always a corner of my heart, Campion, in which I rebelled
against our bachelor's paradise at the Ol