at 'transition,'" inquired Page, "usually simply
that after one or two generations people grow dulled to everything
_but_ possession and fancy themselves worthily occupied when they
spend their lives regulating and caring for their possessions. I
hate," he cried with sudden intensity, "I hate the very sound of the
word!"

"Does you great credit, I'm sure," said Morrison, with a faint irony,
a hidden acrimony, pricking, for an instant, an ugly ear through his
genial manner.

Ever since the day of the fire, since Page had become a more and more
frequent visitor in Lydford and had seen more and more of Sylvia, she
had derived a certain amount of decidedly bad-tasting amusement from
the fact of Morrison's animosity to the other man. But this was going
too far. She said instantly, "Do you know, I've just thought what it
is you all remind me of--I mean Lydford, and the beautiful clothes,
and nobody bothering about anything but tea and ideas and knowing the
right people. I knew it made me think of something else, and now I
know--it's a Henry James novel!"

Page took up her lead instantly, and said gravely, putting himself
beside her as another outsider: "Well, of course, that's their ideal.
That's what they _try_ to be like--at least to talk like James people.
But it's not always easy. The vocabulary is so limited."

"Limited!" cried Mrs. Marshall-Smith. "There are more words in a Henry
James novel than in any dictionary!"

"Oh yes, _words_ enough!" admitted Page, "but all about the same sort
of thing. It reminds me of the seminarists in Rome, who have to use
Latin for everything. They can manage predestination and vicarious
atonement like a shot, but when it comes to ordering somebody to call
them for the six-twenty train to Naples they're lost. Now, you can
talk about your bric-a-brac in Henry-Jamesese, you can take away your
neighbor's reputation by subtle suggestion, you can appreciate a fine
deed of self-abnegation, if it's not too definite! I suppose a man
could even make an attenuated sort of love in the lingo, but I'll be
hanged if I see how anybody could order a loaf of bread,"

"One might do without bread, possibly?" suggested Morrison, pressing
the tips of his beautiful fingers together.

"By Jove," cried Page, in hearty assent, "I've a notion that lots of
times they do!"

This was getting nowhere. Mrs. Marshall-Smith put her hand to the
helm, and addressed herself to Morrison with a plain reminder of the