nd domesticated. He ought to
associate more with educated people, instead of going perpetually to the
dependent performances of the independent theatre, whose motto seems to
be, 'If I don't shock you, I'm a Dutchman!' How curiously archaic it
must feel to be a Dutchman. It must be like having been born in Iceland,
or educated in a Grammar School. I would give almost anything to feel
really Dutch for half-an-hour."

Reggie was looking a little pensive. The performance of his anthem on
the morrow weighed slightly upon his mind. He had an uneasy feeling that
Jimmy Sands and his followers would throw nuances to the winds when they
found themselves in the public eye. When the critical morning was over
he meant to propose to Lady Locke, and in the meanwhile he supposed that
he ought to woo her, or court her, or do something of the kind. He was
not in the least shy, but he had not the faintest idea how to woo a
woman. The very notion of such a proceeding struck him as highly
ridiculous and almost second-rate. It was like an old-fashioned notion.

"Esme," he said, "what do people do before they propose? I suppose they
lead up to it in some absurd way. If I were a rustic I could go and sit
upon a stile with a straw in my mouth, and whistle at Lady Locke, while
she stood staring at me and giggling. But I am not a rustic--I am an
artist. Really, I don't see what I can do. Will she expect something?"

"My dear Reggie, women always expect something. Women are like minors,
they live upon their expectations."

"Well, then," Reggie said petulantly, "what am I to do? Shall I ask her
to take a walk, or what? I really can't put my arm round her waist. One
owes something to oneself in spite of all the nonsense that Ibsen
talks."

"One owes everything to oneself, and I also owe a great deal to other
people--a great deal that I hope to live long enough never to repay. A
debt of honour is one of the finest things in the world. The very name
recalls a speech out of 'Guy Livingstone.' By the way, I sometimes wish
that I had been born swart as he was. I should have pleased Miss Rhoda
Broughton, and she is so deliciously prosaic. Is she not the woman who
said that she was always inspired to a pun by the sight of a cancer
hospital? or am I thinking of Helen Mathers? I can never tell them
apart--their lack of style is so marvellously similar. Why do women
always write in the present tense, Reggie? Is it because they have no
past? To go about w