would have been much more read in England than it has been. Yes, please,
I will have another muffin."

"But I think I feel Turkish too," Miss Haddon said calmly. "Yes, I am
sure I do. I ought not to resist it; ought I? Otherwise I shall be
flying in the face of your beautiful theories." And she squatted down on
the floor at his elbow.

Claude had a wonderful purple moment of acute irritation, during which
he felt strangely natural. Miss Haddon did not appear to notice it. She
went on bombarding him with questions in a cheery manner until he began
to be rather ill, but her face never lost its expression of grave
sadness, a strange, inexplicable melancholy that was not in the least
Bank Holiday. The contrast between her expression and her voice worried
Claude, as an intelligent pantaloon might worry a clown. He felt that
something was wrong. Either face or voice required alteration. And then
questions are like death--extremely irksome. Besides, he found it
difficult to answer many of them, difficult to define precisely the
position of the decadent, his intentions and his aims. It was no use to
tell Miss Haddon that he didn't possess either the one or the other.
Always with the same definitely sad face, the same definitely cheerful
voice, she declined to believe him. He fidgeted on his cushion, and his
Turkish placidity threatened to be seriously disturbed.

The appearance of the absinthe created a diversion. Claude arranged a
glass of it, much diluted with water, for the benefit of his hostess,
and she began to sip it with an air of determined reverence.

"It tastes like the smell of a drag hunt," she said after a while.

Claude's gently-lifted eyebrows proclaimed misapprehension.

"When they drag a trail over a course and satisfy the hounds with a dead
rabbit at the end of it," she explained.

"My dear lady," he protested plaintively. "Really, you do not grasp the
inner meaning of what you are drinking. Presently the most perfect
sensation will steal over you, a curious happy detachment from
everything, as if you were floating in some exquisite element. You will
not care what happens, or what--"

"But must I drink it all before I feel detached?" she asked. "It's
really so very nasty, quite disgusting to the taste. Surely you think
so."

"I drink it for its after-effect."

"Is it like a good act that costs us pain at the moment, and gives us
the pleasure of self-satisfaction ultimately?"

"I don't know," th