she said. "I entirely disapprove of Mrs.
Rushworth having such persons in her house."

I could have wept with rage. Here was this turtle-brained, ugly woman
(so, in my presumption, I called her) daring to speak slightingly of my
beloved master who had condescended to speak out of his Olympian wisdom,
and no fire from Zeus shrivelled her up! She signified her disapproval
with the air of a law-giver, and the other woman acquiesced. I longed to
flame into defence of Paragot; but remembering how ill I fared on a
similar occasion when a member of the Lotus Club accused him of having
led a bear in Warsaw, I wisely held my peace. But I was very angry.

I joined Paragot on the hearth-rug. Presently Joanna came with her
silvery laugh.

"You mustn't be so dreadfully emphatic, Gaston," she said.

"Unintelligent women must not lay down the law on matters they don't
understand," said Paragot.

"But it was Lady Molyneux."

"Which signifies?"

"The sovereign lady of Melford."

"God help Melford!" ejaculated my master.

When the ladies had left us that evening after dinner, Paragot poured
out a glass of port and pushed the decanter across to me.

"My son," said he, "as a philosopher and a citizen of the world you will
find Melford repay patient study as much as Chambery or Buda-Pesth or
the Latin Quarter. It is a garden of Lilliput. Here you will see Life in
its most cultivated littleness. A great passion bursting out across the
way would convulse the town like an earthquake. Observe at the same time
how constant a factor is human nature. However variable the
manifestation may be, the degree is invariable. In spacious conditions
it manifests itself in passions, in narrow ones in prejudices. The
females in and out of petticoats who were here this afternoon experience
the same thrill in expressing their dislike of me as a person foreign to
their convention, as the Sicilian who plunges his dagger into a rival's
bosom. When I am married, my son, I shall not live at Melford."

"Where do you propose to live, Master?" I enquired.

He made a great gesture and drew a deep breath.

"On the Continent of Europe," said he, as if even a particular country
were too cabined to satisfy his nostalgia for wide spaces. "I must have
room, my son, for the development of my genius. I must dream great
things, and immortal visions are blasted under the basilisk eye of Lady
Molyneux."

"She is a _vieille pimbeche_!" I cried.

"She is the curs