manners.

They had, toward the banquet's end, water ices, bon-bons, French
pastry, and ice cream. And presently a slight and blissful sigh of
repletion escaped the child's red lips. The symptoms were satisfactory
but unmistakable; Dulcie was perfectly feminine; her capacity had
proven it.

The Prophet's stately self-control in the fragrant vicinity of
nourishment was now to be rewarded: Barres conducted Dulcie to the
studio and installed her among cushions upon a huge sofa. Then,
lighting a cigarette, he dropped down beside her and crossed one knee
over the other.

"Dulcie," he said in his lazy, humorous way, "it's a funny old world
any way you view it."

"Do you think it is always funny?" inquired the child, her deep, grey
eyes on his face.

He smiled:

"Yes, I do; but sometimes the joke in on one's self. And then,
although it is still a funny world, from the world's point of view,
you, of course, fail to see the humour of it.... I don't suppose you
understand."

"I do," nodded the child, with the ghost of a smile.

"Really? Well, I was afraid I'd been talking nonsense, but if you
understand, it's all right."

They both laughed.

"Do you want to look at some books?" he suggested.

"I'd rather listen to you."

He smiled:

"All right. I'll begin at this corner of the room and tell you about
the things in it." And for a while he rambled lazily on about old
French chairs and Spanish chests, and the panels of Mille Fleur
tapestry which hung behind them; the two lovely pre-Raphael panels in
their exquisite ancient frames; the old Venetian velvet covering
triple choir-stalls in the corner; the ivory-toned marble figure on
its wood and compos pedestal, where tendrils and delicate foliations
of water gilt had become slightly irridescent, harmonising with the
patine on the ancient Chinese garniture flanking a mantel clock of
dullest gold.

About these things, their workmanship, the histories of their times,
he told her in his easy, unaccented voice, glancing sideways at her
from time to time to note how she stood it.

But she listened, fascinated, her gaze moving from the object
discussed to the man who discussed it; her slim limbs curled under
her, her hands clasped around a silken cushion made from the robe of
some Chinese princess.

Lounging there beside her, amused, humorously flattered by her
attention, and perhaps a little touched, he held forth a little
longer.

"Is it a nice party, so far, Dulc