not the most lovely higher synthesis you ever saw?"

"All of which Hegelian dialectics mean that I'd better tell them to
take this stuff away."

"If you think they won't maltreat us. They look terribly fierce; and
they may have any number of myrmidons within call. That sort of
people, you know, doesn't like to have its cooking criticised."

"So long as we pay, we'll not find them too sensitive."

The matter was soon arranged, they adopting the man's suggestion of a
"nice, juicy steak." And when it arrived they felt compelled to
pronounce it excellent.

"I shouldn't be surprised if those green streaks were the proper thing
after all," said Lady Thiselton.

"Doubtless we have missed some extraordinary delicacy," said Morgan.
"But please tell me which particular 'ism' is in possession at the
moment. I am not quite clear on the point."

"That is just my state of mind. But I fancy that, at the present
moment, I am given over to emotion rather than to thought. This
interior is affecting me artistically. I was just thinking what a
lovely Dutch picture it would make. But I really am sincere about my
'isms.' The arguments in favour of any one 'ism' are unanswerable, and
I have to admit the truth of each, whenever I consider it. All human
thought ends in the blind alley of Paradox. Hegel was a word-juggler.
Nice phrases are pleasing, but let us not take them seriously."

And Lady Thiselton proceeded to utter a good many "nice phrases,"
which Morgan found pleasing, and did not take seriously. Customers
dropped in by ones and twos till at length all the other stalls were
filled, everybody instinctively avoiding the stall where a tablecloth
gleamed its white warning. When some men, having eaten, began smoking
their clays, Lady Thiselton's sharp ear detected some speculative
remarks about herself and Morgan, tinged with facetiousness and gore.
She thereupon suggested she was pining for something mystic and
spiritualistic, being quite tired of this realistic interior.

"I am trying to banish it by contemplating the Blessed Damozel," she
said, and quoted whisperingly:

"'The Blessed Damozel leaned out
From the gold bar of Heaven;
Her eyes were deeper than the depth
Of waters stilled at even;
She had three lilies in her hand,
And the stars in her hair were seven.'"

A moment later they stepped out into the afternoon light that nearly
blinded them with its mournful glare. But a heavy s