hild. Not even
Embro was offended with these last words of his: the others laughed;
Embro smiled, though with a certain sourness.

"Pooh, Julius!" said he; "what are you talking about? Science is the
examination of facts, and what has imagination to do with that? Reason,
sir, is what you want!"

"My dear Embro," said Julius, "there are several kinds of facts. There
are, for instance, big facts and little facts,--clean facts and dirty
facts. Imagination raises you and gives you a high and comprehensive
view of them all; your mere reason keeps you down in some noisome
corner, like the man with the muck-rake."

"Hear, hear!" cried the journalist and the artist heartily.

"You're wrong, Julius," said Embro,--"quite wrong. Keep your imagination
for painting and poetry. In science it just leads you the devil's own
dance, and fills you with delusions."

Julius paused, and bent on him his peculiar look, which made a man feel
he was being seen through and through.

"I am surprised, Embro," said he, "that one can live all your years and
not find that the illusions of life are its best part. If you leave me
the illusions, I'll give you all the realities. But how can we stay
babbling and quibbling here all this delicious afternoon? I must go out
and see green things and beasts. Come with me, Lefevre, to the
Zoological Gardens; it will do you good."

"I tell you what," said Lefevre, looking at the clock as they moved
away; "my mother and sister will call for me with the carriage in less
than half an hour: come with us for a drive."

"Oh yes," said Julius; "that's a good idea."

"And I," said Lefevre, "must have a cup of tea in the meantime. Come and
sit down, and tell me where you have been."

But when they had sat down, Julius was little inclined to divagate into
an account of his travels. His glance swept round and noted everything;
he remarked on a soft effect of a shaft of sunshine that lit up the
small conservatory, and burnished the green of a certain plant; he
perceived a fine black Persian cat, the latest pet of the Club, and
exclaimed, "What a beautiful, superb creature!" He called it, and it
came, daintily sniffed at his leg, and leaped on his lap, where he
stroked and fondled it. And all the while he continued to discuss
illusion, while Lefevre poured and drank tea (tea, which Julius would
not share: tea, he said, did not agree with him).

"It bothers me," he said, "to imagine how a man like Embro gets any
s