“But I have heard you regret, dear, that only the least respectable fall in with this.  The rest, being strict Roman Catholics, think it wrong.”

“Are you quite sure last night did, not over-tire you?  You are certainly disposed to be argumentative this morning.”

“I think,” suggested Narcissus, buttering his toast carefully, “you might at least hear what Dorothea has to say.”

“Oh, certainly!  Indeed, if she has been committing me to her projects, I have a right to know the worst.”

“I haven’t committed you—­I only said I would ask your advice,” poor Dorothea stammered.  “And I have no project.”  She caught Narcissus’ eye, and went on a little more firmly:  “Only I thought, perhaps, that if you extended their walks a little on Sundays—­they are scrupulous in keeping their parole.  And, once in a way, we might entertain them at Bayfield—­late in the afternoon, when you have finished your Sunday nap.  Narcissus might show them the pavement and tell them about Vespasian—­not a regular lecture, it being Sunday, but an informal talk, with tea afterwards.  And in the evening, perhaps, they might meet in the Orange Room for some sacred music—­it need not be called a ’concert’—­” Dorothea stopped short, amazed at her own inventiveness.

“H’m.  I envy your simplicity, my dear soul, in believing that the—­ ah—­alleged ennui of these men can he cured by a talk about Vespasian.  But when you go on to talk of sacred music, I must be permitted to remind you that a concert is none the less a concert for being called by another name.  We Britons do not usually allow names to disguise facts.  A concert—­call it even a ‘sacred’ concert—­in the Orange Room, amid those distinctly—­ah—­pagan adornments!  I can scarcely even term it the thin end of the wedge, so clearly can I see it paving the way for other questionable indulgences.  I don’t doubt your good intentions, Dorothea, but you cannot, as a woman, be expected to understand how easily the best intentions may convert Axcester, with its French community, into a veritable hot-bed of vice.  And, by-the-by, you might tell Morrish I shall want the horse again in half-an-hour’s time.”

Dorothea left the room on her errand.  As she closed the door Narcissus looked up from his toast.

“Hot-bed of fiddlesticks!” said he.

“I—­ah—­beg your pardon?”

Endymion, in the act of seating himself at table, paused to stare.

“Hot-bed of fiddlesticks!” repeated Narcissus.  “You needn’t have snapped Dorothea’s head off.  I thought her suggestions extremely sensible.”

“The concert, for instance?”

“Yes! you don’t make sacred music irreverent by calling it a concert.  Moreover, I really don’t see why, as intelligent men, they should not find Vespasian interesting.  His career in many respects resembled the Corsican’s.”

Endymion smiled at his plate.

“Well, well, we will talk about it later on,” said he.