lved to give instructions to his tailor not to spare the
padding in his future coats. He was glad, too, that knee-breeches, for
which he had occasionally sighed, had not come into fashion again. After
all, modern dress had its little advantages. Miss Haddon was still
scattering grain, rather in the attitude of Millet's "_Sower_," and
still talking reflectively.

"We must try to convert Jimmy," she said. "I have a good deal of
influence over him, Mr Melville. We must try to make him more like you,
more thoughtful, more inactive, more frankly sensual, more fond of
sofas, in the future than he has been in the past. Do you know, I am
ashamed to say it, but I don't believe I have ever seen Jimmy lying on a
sofa. Poor Jimmy! Look at that hen! She is choking. Hens gulp their food
so! And then, he's inclined to be persistently unselfish. That must be
stopped too. I have learnt from you that to be decadent one must be
acutely and untiringly selfish. The blessings of selfishness! What a
volume might be written upon them! Mr Melville, all chickens must be
decadent, for all chickens are entirely selfish. It is strange to think
that the average fowl is more advanced in ethics--is it ethics I
mean?--than the average man or woman, is it not? And we ate a decadent
at dinner last night. I feel almost like a cannibal."

She threw away the last grain, and was silent. But suddenly Claude
spoke.

"Miss Haddon," he said, and his voice had never sounded so boyish to her
before, "you have been laughing at me for nearly a week." He paused,
then he went on, rather unevenly, in the up-and-down tones induced by
stifled excitement, "and I have never found it out until this moment. I
suppose you think me a great fool. I daresay I have been one. But please
don't--I mean, please let us give up acting our farce."

"But have we reached the third act?" she said.

They were walking through the garden, among the crocuses and violets
now.

"I am sure I don't know," he answered, trying to seem easy. "Perhaps it
is a farce in one act."

"Perhaps it is not a farce at all, my dear boy," she said very gently
and with a sudden old-world gravity that was not without its grace.

They reached the house. She put her basket down on the oak table in the
wide hall, and faced him in the eager way that was natural to her, and
that was so youthful.

"Mr Melville--Claude," she said, as she held out her hand, clad in a
very countrified brown glove, with a fan-like