them, they don't
a bit mind how far off they walk. It is in questions such as this that
men are really so much more unselfish than women; because the
mothers-in-law do mind--they like us to be near enough to hear what they
say."

"Green frocks would be very nice for the girls, especially if they were
fair," said Lady Robert thoughtfully; "but I think the men would look
rather queer in green, don't you? As if they were actors."

"I'm afraid they would look a bit dissipated," Elisabeth assented; "like
almonds-and-raisins by daylight. By the way, I know nothing that looks
more dissipated than almonds-and-raisins by daylight."

"Except, perhaps, one coffee-cup in the drawing-room the morning after a
dinner party," suggested Farquhar.

Elisabeth demurred. "No; the coffee-cup is sad rather than sinful. It is
as much part and parcel of a bygone time, as the Coliseum or the ruins
of Pompeii; and the respectability of the survival of the fittest is its
own. But almonds-and-raisins are different; to a certain class of
society they represent the embodiment of refinement and luxury and
self-indulgence."

Sir Wilfred Madderley laughed softly to himself. "I know exactly what
you mean."

"Well, I don't agree with Miss Farringdon," Lord Bobby argued; "to my
mind almonds-and-raisins are an emblem of respectability and moral
worth, like chiffonniers and family albums and British matrons. No
really bad man would feel at home with almonds-and-raisins, I'm certain;
but I'd appoint as my trustee any man who could really enjoy them on a
Sunday afternoon. Now take Kesterton, for instance; he's the type of man
who would really appreciate them. My impression is that when his life
comes to be written, it will be found that he took almonds-and-raisins
in secret, as some men take absinthe and others opium."

"It is scandalous to reveal the secrets of the great in this manner,"
said Elisabeth, "and to lower our ideals of them!"

"Forgive me; but still you must always have faintly suspected Kesterton
of respectability, even when you admired him most. All great men have
their weaknesses; mine is melancholy and Lord K.'s respectability, and
Shakespeare's was something quite as bad, but I can't recall just now
what it was."

"And what is Lady K.'s?" asked the hostess.

"Belief in Kesterton, of course, which she carries to the verge of
credulity, not to say superstition. Would you credit it? When he was at
the Exchequer she believed in his