to produce the least, the remotest proof that I am not, so far as
I am personally aware, even the Man in the Moon. Danton at heart
was always an incorrigible sceptic. Aren't you, T. D.? You pride
your dear old brawn on it in secret?'

'I really--' began Danton in a rich still voice.

'Oh, but you know you are,' drawled on the slightly hesitating
long-drawn syllables; 'it's your parochial metier. Firm,
unctuous, subtle, scepticism; and to that end your body
flourishes. You were born fat; you became fat; and fat, my dear
Danton, has been deliberately thrust on you--in layers! Lampreys!
You'll perish of surfeit some day, of sheer Dantonism. And fat,
postmortem, Danton. Oh, what a basting's there!'

Mr Bethany, with a convulsive effort, woke. He turned swiftly on
Mrs Lawford. 'Why, why, could you not have seen?' he cried.

'It's no good, Vicar. She's all sheer Laodicean. Blow hot, blow
cold. North, south, east, west--to have a weathercock for a wife
is to marry the wind. There's nothing to be got from poor Sheila
but....

'Lawford!' the little man's voice was as sharp as the crack of a
whip; 'I forbid it. Do you hear me? I forbid it. Some
self-command; my dear good fellow, remember, remember it's only
the will, the will that keeps us breathing.'

Lawford peered as if out of a gathering dusk, that thickened and
flickered with shadows before his eyes. 'What's he mean, then,'