"felt it in his bones," as Bertha used to say--dear Bertha, she used to
declare that her bones were so peculiarly and remarkably sensitive to
anything of interest--Nigel felt, as I say, Rupert was longing to talk
about Madeline.

He therefore led the conversation to her, remarked how quiet she had
been of late, and told him various things about her.

"Did she ever mention me?" asked Rupert, as he looked down at his
wineglass.

"Oh yes, rather."

"What did she say?"

"She said," replied Nigel, "that she was jolly glad she never saw you
now and that you were a silly rotter!"

"I recognise Miss Madeline's style," replied Rupert with a smile, as he
rose from the table.

CHAPTER XXXIV

MOONA

Like all cultivated people, particularly those who attach much
importance to pleasure and amusement, variety, art, and the play, Nigel
was very fond of Paris; it always pleased him to go there; and yet he
doubted if he were quite as fond of it in reality as he was in theory.
The best acting, the best cooking, the best millinery in the world was
to be found in Paris; and yet Nigel wasn't sure that he didn't enjoy
those things more when he got them in London--that he enjoyed French
cooking best in an English restaurant, and even a French play at an
English theatre. Certainly Paris was the centre of art. Nigel was fond
of pictures, and he amused himself more with a few young French artists
whom he happened to know living here than with anybody else in the city;
and yet when he went back to London he sometimes felt that the
recollection of it, the chatter of studios, the slang of the critics,
even the whole sense and sound of Paris gave him a little the
recollection as of a huge cage of monkeys. Like most modern Englishmen,
he talked disparagingly about British hypocrisy, Anglo-Saxon humbug,
English stiffness and London fog; and yet, after all, he missed and
valued these very things. Wasn't the fog and the hypocrisy--one was the
symbol of the other--weren't all these things the very charm of London?
Fog and hypocrisy--that is to say, shadow, convention, decency--these
were the very things that lent to London its poetry and romance.

Everything in Paris, it was true, was picturesque, everything had colour
and form, everything made a picture. But it was all too obvious;
everything was all there ready for one's amusement, ready for one's
pleasure. People were too obliging, too willing. And the men! Well,
Nigel was far mor