rule to dress regularly for dinner in order to maintain their
self-respect and prevent a relapse into barbarism. It was in some
such spirit, with an added touch of self-consciousness, that, at
seven o'clock in the evening of 23rd September in a recent year, I
was making my evening toilet in my chambers in Pall Mall. I thought
the date and the place justified the parallel; to my advantage even;
for the obscure Burmese administrator might well be a man of blunted
sensibilities and coarse fibre, and at least he is alone with nature,
while I--well, a young man of condition and fashion, who knows the
right people, belongs to the right clubs, has a safe, possibly a
brilliant, future in the Foreign Office--may be excused for a sense
of complacent martyrdom, when, with his keen appreciation of the
social calendar, he is doomed to the outer solitude of London in
September. I say 'martyrdom', but in fact the case was infinitely
worse. For to feel oneself a martyr, as everybody knows, is a
pleasurable thing, and the true tragedy of my position was that I had
passed that stage. I had enjoyed what sweets it had to offer in ever
dwindling degree since the middle of August, when ties were still
fresh and sympathy abundant. I had been conscious that I was missed
at Morven Lodge party. Lady Ashleigh herself had said so in the
kindest possible manner, when she wrote to acknowledge the letter in
which I explained, with an effectively austere reserve of language,
that circumstances compelled me to remain at my office. 'We know how
busy you must be just now', she wrote, 'and I do hope you won't
overwork; we shall _all_ miss you very much.' Friend after friend
'got away' to sport and fresh air, with promises to write and
chaffing condolences, and as each deserted the sinking ship, I took a
grim delight in my misery, positively almost enjoying the first week
or two after my world had been finally dissipated to the four bracing
winds of heaven.