’The fact is, I have been thinking of putting some of my own —­ yet I don’t think I shall.  We’re going away for the winter.  Sibyl wants to give up the house, and I think she’s right.  For people like us, it’s mere foolery to worry with a house and a lot of servants.  We’re neither of us cut out for that kind of thing.  Sibyl hates housekeeping.  Well, you can’t expect a woman like her to manage a pack of thieving, lying, lazy servants.  The housekeeper idea hasn’t been a conspicuous success, you see, and there’s nothing for it but hotel or boarding-house.’

‘If you remember,’ said Rolfe, ’I hinted something of the kind a year ago.’

’Yes; but —­ well, you know, when people marry they generally look for a certain natural consequence.  If we have no children, it’ll be all right.’

Rolfe meditated for a moment.

’You remember that fellow Wager —­ the man you met at Abbott’s?  His wife died a year ago, and now he has bolted, leaving his two children in a lodging-house.’

‘What a damned scoundrel!’ cried Hugh, with a note of honest indignation.

’Well, yes; but there’s something to be said for him.  It’s a natural revolt against domestic bondage.  Of course, as things are, someone else has to bear the bother and expense; but that’s only our state of barbarism.  A widower with two young children and no income —­ imagine the position.  Of course, he ought to be able to get rid of them in some legitimate way —­ state institution —­ anything you like that answers to reason.’

‘I don’t know whether it would work.’

’Some day it will.  People talk such sentimental rubbish about children.  I would have the parents know nothing about them till they’re ten or twelve years old.  They’re a burden, a hindrance, a perpetual source of worry and misery.  Most wives are sacrificed to the next generation —­ an outrageous absurdity.  People snivel over the deaths of babies; I see nothing to grieve about.  If a child dies, why, the probabilities are it ought to die; if it lives, it lives, and you get survival of the fittest.  We don’t want to choke the world with people, most of them rickety and wheezing; let us be healthy, and have breathing space.’

‘I believe in that,’ said Carnaby.

‘You’re going away, then.  Where to?’

‘That’s the point,’ replied Hugh, moving uneasily.  ’You see, with Sibyl —.  I have suggested Davos.  Some people she knows are there —­ girls who go in for tobogganing, and have a good time.  But Sibyl’s afraid of the cold.  I can’t convince her that it’s nothing to what we endure here in the beastliness of a London winter.  She hates the thought of ice and snow and mountains.  A great pity; it would do her no end of good.  I suppose we must go to the Riviera.’

He shrugged his shoulders, and for a moment there was silence.

‘By-the-bye,’ he resumed, ’I have a letter from Miles, and you’d like to see it.’