ith
each dish. I got into difficulties early in the proceedings. The taste
of sherry, for instance, is absolutely nauseous to me; and Rhine wine
turns into vinegar ten minutes after it has passed my lips. I asked for
the wine that I could drink, out of its turn. You should have seen Mr.
Farnaby's face, when I violated the rules of his dinner-table! It was
the one amusing incident of the feast--the one thing that alleviated the
dreary and mysterious spectacle of Mrs. Farnaby. There she sat, with her
mind hundreds of miles away from everything that was going on about
her, entangling the two guests, on her right hand and on her left, in a
network of vacant questions, just as she had entangled me. I discovered
that one of these gentlemen was a barrister and the other a ship-owner,
by the answers which Mrs. Farnaby absently extracted from them on the
subject of their respective vocations in life. And while she questioned
incessantly, she ate incessantly. Her vigorous body insisted on being
fed. She would have emptied her wineglass (I suspect) as readily as
she plied her knife and fork--but I discovered that a certain system
of restraint was established in the matter of wine. At intervals, Mr.
Farnaby just looked at the butler--and the butler and his bottle, on
those occasions, deliberately passed her by. Not the slightest visible
change was produced in her by the eating and drinking; she was equal to
any demands that any dinner could make on her. There was no flush in her
face, no change in her spirits, when she rose, in obedience to English
custom, and retired to the drawing-room.

Left together over their wine, the men began to talk politics.

I listened at the outset, expecting to get some information. Our
readings in modern history at Tadmor had informed us of the dominant
political position of the middle classes in England, since the time of
the first Reform Bill. Mr. Farnaby's guests represented the respectable
mediocrity of social position, the professional and commercial average
of the nation. They all talked glibly enough--I and an old gentleman who
sat next to me being the only listeners. I had spent the morning lazily
in the smoking-room of the hotel, reading the day's newspapers. And
what did I hear now, when the politicians set in for their discussion? I
heard the leading articles of the day's newspapers translated into bald
chat, and coolly addressed by one man to another, as if they were his
own individual vi