Ingram was at least a candid friend.  It was not the first nor the hundredth time that Frank Lavender had to endure small lectures, uttered in a slow, deliberate voice, and yet with an indifference of manner which showed that Ingram cared very little how sharply his words struck home.  He rarely even apologized for his bluntness.  These were his opinions:  Lavender could take them or leave them, as he liked.  And the younger man, after finding his face flush a bit on being accused of wishing to make a dramatic impression with Sheila’s entrance into London society, laughed in an embarrassed way, and said, “It is impossible to be angry with you, Ingram, and yet you do talk so absurdly.  I wonder who is likely to know more about the character of a girl than her own husband?”

“You may in time:  you don’t now,” said Ingram, carefully balancing a biscuit on the point of his finger.

“The fact is,” said Lavender with good-natured impatience, “you are the most romantic card I know, and there is no pleasing you.  You have all sorts of exalted notions about things—­about sentiments and duties, and so forth.  Well, all that is true enough, and would be right enough if the world were filled with men and women like yourself; but then it isn’t, you see, and one has to give in to conventionalities of dress and living and ceremonies, if one wants to retain one’s friends.  Now, I like to see you going about with that wide-awake—­it suits your brown complexion and beard—­and that stick that would do for herding sheep; and the costume looks well and is business-like and excellent when you’re off for a walk over the Surrey downs or lying on the river-banks about Henley or Cookham; but it isn’t, you know, the sort of costume for a stroll in the Park.”

“Whenever God withdraws from me my small share of common sense,” said Ingram slowly, “so far that I shall begin to think of having my clothes made for the purpose of walking in Hyde Park, well—­”

“But don’t you see,” said Lavender, “that one must meet one’s friends, especially when one is married; and when you know that at a certain hour in the forenoon they are all to be found in a particular place, and that a very pleasant place, and that you will do yourself good by having a walk in the fresh air, and so forth, I really don’t see anything very immoral in going down for an hour or so to the Park!”

“Don’t you think the pleasure of seeing one’s friends might be postponed till one had done some sort of good day’s work?”

“There now!” cried Lavender, “that is another of your delusions.  You are always against superstitions, and yet you make work a fetish.  You do with work just as women do with duty:  they carry about with them a convenient little god, and they are always worshiping it with small sacrifices, and complimenting themselves on a series of little martyrdoms that are of no good to anybody.  Of course, duty wouldn’t be duty if it wasn’t disagreeable, and when they go nursing the sick—­and