"And now, as the parsons say, 'to continue'; you were advising me to ask----" "Your uncle." All the brightness has died out of Rylton's voice; he looks dull, uninterested.

That small remark of hers--what memories it has awakened! And yet--_would_ he go back?
"Chut! What a suggestion!" says Tita, shrugging her shoulders.
"Don't you know that my one thought is to enjoy myself ?" "A great one," says he, smiling strangely.
She cares for nothing, he tells himself: _nothing!_ He has married a mere butterfly; yet how pretty the butterfly is, lying back there in that huge armchair, her picturesque little figure flung carelessly into artistic curves, her soft, velvety head rubbing itself restlessly amongst the amber cushions.

The cushions had been in one of the drawing-rooms, but she had declared he was frightfully uncomfortable in his horrid old den, and has insisted on making him a handsome present of them.

She seems to him the very incarnation of exquisite idleness, the idleness that knows no thought.
"Very good," says he at last.

"If you refuse to make up a list of _your_ friends, help me to make up a list of mine.