all. He would go and talk with an interesting,
experienced and sympathetic Father of the Huysmanite sect of the Isis
cult, about all the irrational little proceedings he was pleased to
regard as his heaven-dismaying wickedness, and the interesting,
experienced and sympathetic Father representing Heaven dismayed, would
with a pleasing affectation of horror, suggest simple and easy penances,
and recommend a monastic foundation that was airy, cool, hygienic, and
not vulgarised, for viscerally disordered penitent sinners of the
refined and wealthy type. And after these excursions, Bindon would come
back to London quite active and passionate again. He would machinate
with really considerable energy, and repair to a certain gallery high
above the street of moving ways, from which he could view the entrance
to the barrack of the Labour Company in the ward which sheltered Denton
and Elizabeth. And at last one day he saw Elizabeth go in, and thereby
his passion was renewed.

So in the fullness of time the complicated devices of Bindon ripened,
and he could go to Mwres and tell him that the young people were near
despair.

"It's time for you," he said, "to let your parental affections have
play. She's been in blue canvas some months, and they've been cooped
together in one of those Labour dens, and the little girl is dead. She
knows now what his manhood is worth to her, by way of protection, poor
girl. She'll see things now in a clearer light. You go to her--I don't
want to appear in this affair yet--and point out to her how necessary it
is that she should get a divorce from him...."

"She's obstinate," said Mwres doubtfully.

"Spirit!" said Bindon. "She's a wonderful girl--a wonderful girl!"

"She'll refuse."

"Of course she will. But leave it open to her. Leave it open to her. And
some day--in that stuffy den, in that irksome, toilsome life they can't
help it--_they'll have a quarrel_. And then--"

Mwres meditated over the matter, and did as he was told.

Then Bindon, as he had arranged with his spiritual adviser, went into
retreat. The retreat of the Huysmanite sect was a beautiful place, with
the sweetest air in London, lit by natural sunlight, and with restful
quadrangles of real grass open to the sky, where at the same time the
penitent man of pleasure might enjoy all the pleasures of loafing and
all the satisfaction of distinguished austerity. And, save for
participation in the simple and wholesome dietary of the