for him.  Suppose I exhibit her to him in the arms, figuratively speaking, of her husband (providing one is lurking in some back-alley of the world), Mr. Anastasius Papadopoulos, a curate, or a champion wrestler.  He would do desperate things for a month or two; but then he would wake up sane one fine morning and seek out Maisie Ellerton in a salutary state of penitence.  I wish I knew a curate who combined a passion for bears and a yearning for ladylike tea-parties.  I would take him forthwith to Cadogan Gardens.  Lola Brandt and himself would have tastes in common and would fall in love with each other on the spot.

Of course there is the other time-honoured plan which I have not yet tried—­to arm myself with diplomacy, call on Madame Brandt, and, working on her feelings, persuade her in the name of the boy’s mother and sweetheart to make a noble sacrifice in the good, old-fashioned way.  But this seems such an unhumourous proceeding.  If I am to achieve eumoiriety I may as well do it with some distinction.

“Who doth Time gallop withal?” asks Orlando.

“With a thief to the gallows,” says Rosalind.  It is true.  The days have an uncanny way of racing by.  I see my little allotted span of life shrinking visibly, like the peau de chagrin.  I must bestir myself, or my last day will come before I have accomplished anything.

When I jotted down the above not very original memorandum I had passed a perfectly uneumoirous week among my friends and social acquaintances.  I had stood godfather to my sister Agatha’s fifth child, taking upon myself obligations which I shall never be able to perform; I had dined amusingly at my sister Jane’s; I had shot pheasants at Farfax Glenn’s place in Hampshire; and I had paid a long-promised charming country-house visit to old Lady Blackadder.

When I came back to town, however, I consulted my calendar with some anxiety, and set out to clear my path.

I have now practically withdrawn from political life.  Letters have passed; complimentary and sympathetic gentlemen have interviewed me and tried to weaken my decision.  The great Raggles has even called, and dangled the seals of office before my eyes.  I said they were very pretty.  He thought he had tempted me.

“Hang on as long as you can, for the sake of the Party.”

I spoke playfully of the Party (a man in my position, with one eye on Time and the other on Eternity, develops an acute sense of values) and Raggles held up horrified hands.  To Raggles the Party is the Alpha and Omega of things human and divine.  It is the guiding principle of the Cosmos.  I could have spoken disrespectfully of the British Empire, of which he has a confused notion; I could have dismissed the Trinity, on which his ideas are vaguer, with an airy jest; in the expression of my views concerning the Creator, whom he believes to be under the Party’s protection, I could have out-Pained Tom Paine, out-Taxiled Leo Taxil, and he would not have winced.  But to blaspheme against the Party was the sin for which there was no redemption.