e Tiddler! Tiddler! Did you ever hear of such a
name? It sounds like one of Dickens' characters. He says that all you
have to do is to run about! Give me the long chair, please. He has
almost succeeded in making me feel like Tiddler. It is a dreadful
sensation."

She fanned herself slowly and looked round.

"Who is that in the rose garden?" she asked, putting up her eyeglass.
"Oh! Lady Locke and Lord Reggie--an ill-assorted couple. They ought to
marry."

"Why, dear lady?" said Esme.

"Because they are ill-assorted. Affinities never marry nowadays. They
always run away together and live on the Continent, waiting for decrees
nisi. We repent of what we do so hastily nowadays. People divorce each
other almost on sight. Will Lady Locke accept him?"

"Do widows ever refuse?"

"I am a widow."

"Indeed! I did not know it, or, if I ever knew it, I had forgotten. You
are so delightfully married in your conduct."

"Was it Whistler who said that first?"

"No, I believe it comes originally from the Dutch. But it is my own
adaptation, and I am too modest to put my name on a programme. Ah!
Madame Valtesi, why have I never set the world in a blaze? I have plied
the bellows most industriously, and I have made the twigs crackle, yet
the fire splutters a good deal. Perhaps I have too much genius. Can it
be that? My good things are in everybody's mouth."

"That's just it. You ought to have swallowed a cork years and years
ago."

"Like Mr. Henry James. I always know when he has thought of a clever
thing at a party."

"How?"

"By his leaving it immediately, and in total silence. He rushes home to
write his thought down. His memory is treacherous."

"And does he often have to leave a party?"

"Pretty often. About once a year, I believe."

"It must be very trying socially to be so clever. So Lord Reggie is
actually serious?"

"I hope he is never that. He will marry, as he sins, prettily, with the
gaiety of a young Greek god."

"Marry and not settle down, as we all do now? We have improved upon the
old code."

"We have practically abolished codes in London. In the country I fancy
they continue to think of the commandments. How many commandments are
there?"

"I forget! Seven, I think, or is it seventeen? Probably seventeen. I
know there are a great many. I heard of a clergyman in a Northern parish
who took twenty minutes to read them, although he left out all the h's.
Lady Locke and Lord Reggie have wandered away. It