ffluence for a week. Nor
can she say half a dozen words without being witty. What do you think
of this? We were discussing the old question, if it were well for a
woman to have a sweetheart. Kitty said, 'London has given me
everything but that. I can always find a man who will give me five
and twenty guineas, but a sweetheart I can't find.'"

Every pen stopped, and expectation was on every face. After a pause
Mike continued--

"Kitty said, 'In the first place he must please me, and I am very
difficult to please; then I must please him, and sufficiently for him
to give up his whole time to me. And he must not be poor, for
although he would not give me money, it would cost him several
hundreds a year to invite me to dinner and send me flowers. And where
am I to find this combination of qualities?' Can't you hear her
saying it, her sweet face like a tea-rose, those innocent blue eyes
all laughing with happiness? The great stockbroker, who has been with
her for the last ten years, settled fifty thousand pounds when he
first took her up. She was speaking to me about him the other day,
and when I said, 'Why didn't you leave him when the money was
settled?' she said, 'Oh no, I wouldn't do a dirty trick like that;
I contented myself simply by being unfaithful to him.'"

"This is no doubt very clever, but if you put all you have told us
into your article, you'll certainly have the paper turned off the
book-stalls."

The conversation paused. Every one finished his brandy-and-soda, and
the correction of proofs was continued in silence, interrupted only
by an occasional oath or a word of remonstrance from Frank, who
begged Drake, a huge-shouldered man, whose hand was never out of the
cigarette-box, not to drop the lighted ends on the carpet. Mike was
reading Harding's article.

"I think we shall have a good number this week," said Mike. "But we
want a piece of verse. I wonder if you could get something from John
Norton. What do you think of Norton, Harding?"

"He is one of the most interesting men I know. His pessimism, his
Catholicism, his yearning for ritual, his very genuine hatred of
women, it all fascinates me."

"What do you think of that poem he told us of the other night?"

"Intensely interesting; but he will never be able to complete it. A
man may be full of talent and yet be nothing of an artist; a man may
be far less clever than Norton, and with a subtler artistic sense. If
a seal had really something to say,