"Oh, I can't think so!" he said.

"Yes, yes, she would. She doesn't care honestly for art-loving men. Her
idea of a real man, the sort of man a woman marries, or bolts with, or
goes off her head for, is a huge mass of bones and muscles and thews and
sinews that knows not beauty. And your son would adore her, Sir Donald.
Better not let him, though. Holme's a jealous devil."

"Totally without reason," said Pierce, with a touch of bitterness.

"No doubt. It's part of his Grand Turk nature. He ought to possess a
Yildiz. He's out of place in London where marital jealousy is more
unfashionable than pegtop trousers."

He buried himself in his glass. Sir Donald rose to go.

"I hope I may see you again," he said rather tentatively at parting. "I
am to be found in the Albany."

They both said they would call, and he slipped away gently.

"There's a sensitive man," said Carey when he had gone. "A sort of male
Lady Cardington. Both of them are morbidly conscious of their age and
carry it about with them as if it were a crime. Yet they're both worth
knowing. People with that temperament who don't use hair-dye must have
grit. His son's awful."

"And his poems?"