izon and tall windows, looking as
if it dealt habitually in common-sense, discouraged him. Innumerable men
of breeding and the soundest principles must have bought their wives in
here. It was perfumed with the atmosphere of wisdom and law-calf. The
aroma of Precedent was strong; Shelton swerved his lance, and once more
settled down to complete the purchase of his wife.

"I can't conceive what you're--in such a hurry for; you 're not going to
be married till the autumn," said Mr. Paramor, finishing at last.

Replacing the blue pencil in the rack, he took the red rose from the
glass, and sniffed at it. "Will you come with me as far as Pall Mall? I
'm going to take an afternoon off; too cold for Lord's, I suppose?"

They walked into the Strand.

"Have you seen this new play of Borogrove's?" asked Shelton, as they
passed the theatre to which he had been with Halidome.

"I never go to modern plays," replied Mr. Paramor; "too d---d gloomy."

Shelton glanced at him; he wore his hat rather far back on his head, his
eyes haunted the street in front; he had shouldered his umbrella.

"Psychology 's not in your line, Uncle Ted?"

"Is that what they call putting into words things that can't be put in
words?"

"The French succeed in doing it," replied Shelton, "and the Russians;
why should n't we?"

Mr. Paramor stopped to look in at a fishmonger's.

"What's right for the French and Russians, Dick," he said "is wrong for
us. When we begin to be real, we only really begin to be false. I should
like to have had the catching of that fellow; let's send him to your
mother." He went in and bought a salmon:

"Now, my dear," he continued, as they went on, "do you tell me that it's
decent for men and women on the stage to writhe about like eels? Is n't
life bad enough already?"

It suddenly struck Shelton that, for all his smile, his uncle's face had
a look of crucifixion. It was, perhaps, only the stronger sunlight in
the open spaces of Trafalgar Square.

"I don't know," he said; "I think I prefer the truth."

"Bad endings and the rest," said Mr. Paramor, pausing under one of
Nelson's lions and taking Shelton by a button. "Truth 's the very
devil!"

He stood there, very straight, his eyes haunting his nephew's face;
there seemed to Shelton a touching muddle in his optimism--a muddle of
tenderness and of intolerance, of truth and second-handedness. Like the
lion above him, he seemed to be defying Life to make him look at her