ruit salad and iced draughts of hock-cup. So brief is
human glory that two or three independent souls had even now drifted from
the theme of the moment on to other more personally interesting topics.

"Iced mulberry salad, my dear, it's a specialite de la maison, so to
speak; they say the roving husband brought the recipe from Astrakhan, or
Seville, or some such outlandish place."

"I wish my husband would roam about a bit and bring back strange
palatable dishes. No such luck, he's got asthma and has to keep on a
gravel soil with a south aspect and all sorts of other restrictions."

"I don't think you're to be pitied in the least; a husband with asthma is
like a captive golf-ball, you can always put your hand on him when you
want him."

"All the hangings, violette de Parme, all the furniture, rosewood.
Nothing is to be played in it except Mozart. Mozart only. Some of my
friends wanted me to have a replica of the Mozart statue at Vienna put up
in a corner of the room, with flowers always around it, but I really
couldn't. I couldn't. One is so tired of it, one sees it everywhere. I
couldn't do it. I'm like that, you know."

"Yes, I've secured the hero of the hour, Ronnie Storre, oh yes, rather.
He's going to join our yachting trip, third week of August. We're going
as far afield as Fiume, in the Adriatic--or is it the AEgean? Won't it
be jolly. Oh no, we're not asking Mrs. Yeovil; it's quite a small yacht
you know--at least, it's a small party."

The excellent von Tolb took her departure, bearing off with her the
Landgraf, who had already settled the date and duration of Ronnie's
Christmas visit.

"It will be dull, you know," he warned the prospective guest; "our
Landtag will not be sitting, and what is a bear-garden without the bears?
However, we haf some wildt schwein in our woods, we can show you some
sport in that way."

Ronnie instantly saw himself in a well-fitting shooting costume, with a
Tyrolese hat placed at a very careful angle on his head, but he confessed
that the other details of boar-hunting were rather beyond him.

With the departure of the von Tolb party Canon Mousepace gravitated
decently but persistently towards a corner where the Duchess, still at
concert pitch, was alternatively praising Ronnie's performance and the
mulberry salad. Joan Mardle, who formed one of the group, was not openly
praising any one, but she was paying a silent tribute to the salad.

"We were just talking a