re became
articulate and markedly voluble after four minutes of introductory
muteness. Egbert seized the milk-jug and poured some of its contents
into Don Tarquinio's saucer; as the saucer was already full to the brim
an unsightly overflow was the result. Don Tarquinio looked on with a
surprised interest that evanesced into elaborate unconsciousness when he
was appealed to by Egbert to come and drink up some of the spilt matter.
Don Tarquinio was prepared to play many roles in life, but a vacuum
carpet-cleaner was not one of them.

"Don't you think we're being rather foolish?" said Egbert cheerfully.

If Lady Anne thought so she didn't say so.

"I dare say the fault has been partly on my side," continued Egbert, with
evaporating cheerfulness. "After all, I'm only human, you know. You
seem to forget that I'm only human."

He insisted on the point, as if there had been unfounded suggestions that
he was built on Satyr lines, with goat continuations where the human left
off.

The bullfinch recommenced its air from _Iphigenie en Tauride_. Egbert
began to feel depressed. Lady Anne was not drinking her tea. Perhaps
she was feeling unwell. But when Lady Anne felt unwell she was not wont
to be reticent on the subject. "No one knows what I suffer from
indigestion" was one of her favourite statements; but the lack of
knowledge can only have been caused by defective listening; the amount of
information available on the subject would have supplied material for a
monograph.

Evidently Lady Anne was not feeling unwell.

Egbert began to think he was being unreasonably dealt with; naturally he
began to make concessions.

"I dare say," he observed, taking as central a position on the hearth-rug
as Don Tarquinio could be persuaded to concede him, "I may have been to
blame. I am willing, if I can thereby restore things to a happier
standpoint, to undertake to lead a better life."

He wondered vaguely how it would be possible. Temptations came to him,
in middle age, tentatively and without insistence, like a neglected
butcher-boy who asks for a Christmas box in February for no more hopeful
reason that than he didn't get one in December. He had no more idea of
succumbing to them than he had of purchasing the fish-knives and fur boas
that ladies are impelled to sacrifice through the medium of advertisement
columns during twelve months of the year. Still, there was something
impressive in this unasked-for renunciation o