travelling
in Africa and in the South Sea Islands for a long time past, working at
materials for a History of Taboo, from its earliest beginnings in the
savage stage to its fully developed European complexity; so of course
all you say comes home to me greatly. Your taboos, I foresee, will prove
a most valuable and illustrative study."

"I beg your pardon," Philip interposed stiffly, now put upon his mettle.
"We have NO taboos at all in England. You're misled, no doubt, by a mere
playful facon de parler, which society indulges in. England, you must
remember, is a civilised country, and taboos are institutions that
belong to the lowest and most degraded savages."

But Bertram Ingledew gazed at him in the blankest astonishment. "No
taboos!" he exclaimed, taken aback. "Why, I've read of hundreds. Among
nomological students, England has always been regarded with the greatest
interest as the home and centre of the highest and most evolved taboo
development. And you yourself," he added with a courteous little bow,
"have already supplied me with quite half a dozen. But perhaps you call
them by some other name among yourselves; though in origin and essence,
of course, they're precisely the same as the other taboos I've been
examining so long in Asia and Africa. However, I'm afraid I'm detaining
you from the function of your joss-house. You wish, no doubt, to make
your genuflexions in the Temple of Respectability."

And he reflected silently on the curious fact that the English
give themselves by law fifty-two weekly holidays a year, and compel
themselves by custom to waste them entirely in ceremonial observances.

III

On the way to church, the Monteiths sifted out their new acquaintance.

"Well, what do you make of him, Frida?" Philip asked, leaning back in
his place, with a luxurious air, as soon as the carriage had turned the
corner. "Lunatic or sharper?"

Frida gave an impatient gesture with her neatly gloved hand. "For my
part," she answered without a second's hesitation, "I make him neither:
I find him simply charming."

"That's because he praised your dress," Philip replied, looking wise.
"Did ever you know anything so cool in your life? Was it ignorance, now,
or insolence?"

"It was perfect simplicity and naturalness," Frida answered with
confidence. "He looked at the dress, and admired it, and being
transparently naif, he didn't see why he shouldn't say so. It wasn't at
all rude, I thought--and it gav