Has he had supper?'

'Why do you ask?'

'He won't believe: too--bloated.'

'I think,' said Sheila indignantly, 'it is hardly fair to speak of a
very old and a very true friend of mine in such--well, vulgar terms as
that. Besides, Arthur, as for believing--without in the least desiring
to hurt your feelings--I must candidly warn you, some people won't.'

'Come along,' said Lawford, with a faint gust of laughter; 'let's see.'

They went quickly downstairs, Sheila with less dignity, perhaps, than
she had been surprised into since she had left a slimmer girlhood
behind. She swept into the gaze of the two gentlemen standing together
on the hearthrug; and so was caught, as it were, between a rain of
conflicting glances, for her husband had followed instantly, and stood
now behind her, stooping a little, and with something between contempt
and defiance confronting an old fat friend, whom that one brief
challenging instant had congealed into a condition of passive and
immovable hostility.

Mr Danton composed his chin in his collar, and deliberately
turned himself towards his companion. His small eyes wandered, and
instantaneously met and rested on those of Mrs Lawford.

'Arthur thought he would prefer to come down and see you himself.'

'You take such formidable risks, Lawford,' said Mr Bethany in a dry,
difficult voice.

'Am I really to believe,' Danton began huskily. 'I am sure, Bethany,
you will--My dear Mrs Lawford!' said he, stirring vaguely, glancing
restlessly.

'It was not my wish, Vicar, to come at all,' said a voice from the
doorway. 'To tell you the truth, I am too tired to care a jot either
way. And'--he lifted a long arm--'I must positively refuse to produce
the least, the remotest proof that I am not, so far as I am personally
aware, even the Man in the Moon. Danton at heart was always an
incorrigible sceptic. Aren't you, T. D.? You pride your dear old brawn
on it in secret?'

'I really--' began Danton in a rich still voice.

'Oh, but you know you are,' drawled on the slightly hesitating
long-drawn syllables; 'it's your parochial metier. Firm, unctuous,
subtle, scepticism; and to that end your body flourishes. You were born
fat; you became fat; and fat, my dear Danton, has been deliberately
thrust on you--in layers! Lampreys! You'll perish of surfeit some day,
of sheer Dantonism. And fat, postmortem, Danton. Oh, what a basting's
there!'

Mr Bethany, with a convulsive effort, woke. He turned swift