He used to come to me in my rooms in Newman Street, on his way back from an evening party or a ball, to smoke a cigar, and it was very interesting to watch his growing disgust for the life, and the grotesque and humorous ways in which he expressed it.

“Do I feel flat?” he used to say—­“it isn’t the word—­bored to death.  Why, my dear Chris, if you’d heard the conversation of the lady next me to-night, you’d have thought that the premier said, every morning when his shaving-water was brought him, ’Another day!  Whose happiness can I mar?  Whose ruin can I effect?  What villainy can I execute to-day?’”

One night, at dinner, he happened to sit next a young lady in whom the fashionable world were a good deal interested.

It is impossible to give a fair sketch of her character; she was what would now be called unconventional, and was then called fast.

She openly avowed her preference for men’s society as compared to female—­women, as a rule, did not like her—­she used to receive calls from her own men friends in her own room whenever she liked, and it was considered rather “compromising” to know her.

She was perfectly reckless about what she said and did.  I questioned Arthur about her conversation, for she was accused of telling improper stories.  “I have often,” he said, “heard her allude to things and tell stories that would be considered unusual, even indelicate.  But I never heard her say a thing in which there could be any conceivable ‘taint,’ in which the point consisted in the violation of the decent sense.  The ‘doubtful’ element was rare and always incidental.”

Arthur told me a delightful story about her.  Her father was a testy old country gentleman, very irritable and obstinate.

It happened that an Eton boy was staying in the house, of the blundering lumpish type; he had had more than his share of luck in breaking windows and articles of furniture.  One morning Mr. B——­, finding his study window broken, declared in a paroxysm of rage that the next thing he broke the boy should go.

That same afternoon, it happened he was playing at small cricket with Maud, and made a sharp cut into the great greenhouse.  There was a crash of glass, followed by Maud’s ringing laugh.

They stopped their game, and went to discuss the position of events.  As they stood there, Mr. B——­’s garden door, just round the corner, was heard to open and slam, and craunch, craunch, came his stately pace upon the gravel.

They stared with a humorous horror at one another.  In an instant, Maud caught up a lawn-tennis racquet that was near, and smashed the next pane to atoms.  Mr. B——­ quickened his pace, hearing the crash, and came round the corner with his most judicial and infuriated air, rather hoping to pack the culprit out of the place, only to be met by his favourite daughter.  “Papa, I’m so sorry, I’ve broken the greenhouse with my racquet.  May I send for Smith?  I’ll pay him out of my own money.”