"You make places much more loathsome by not being there than I do," said Fay.
"Pardon me, that is the one subject on which I am more competent to form a judgment than you are, as you have never been into those abominations of desolation where you are not present, and can therefore form no idea of their ghastly vacuity. But consciousness of sin should result in amendment of life, and now that we know our faults the next question is how are we to cure them?"
"We'll cure yours first, Sir Reggie. It seems to me that all you have got to do is to go to all places and parties that I go to, so that I shall never know how horrible they would have been if you hadn't been there. Of course, if you could have been everywhere at once it would have been best, as in that case there would have been no dull parties or empty places—no abominations of desolations, that is to say—for anybody. But that would be so difficult and trying for you, as it is most fatiguing to be in even two places at once. Please notice what self-restraint I am exercising in not quoting Sir Boyle Roche and his bird. Ninety-nine persons out of every hundred would have done so at the present point of the conversation."
"But you are always the hundredth," I explained.
"But not the Old Hundredth as yet! that is a pleasure still to come."
"Not in my time," I said, and though I smiled there was a sigh at the back of the smile. How glorious it would have been if I had been young too, so that Fay and I might have grown old together! But that could never be.
"So, as you can't be in two, much less in two hundred places at once, the only thing is for you to be in the same place as I am. That will come to the same thing, as far as I am concerned, and beyond that I really cannot manage matters. I have a most provincial mind, and the world isn't my province, as it was Bacon's or Shakspere's or somebody's. Whoever it was, he must have been a very interfering person if he acted up to his principles, which I expect he didn't, as nobody does, except Miss Kingsnorth and Mr. Blathwayte."
"They do," I agreed.
"Don't they, fearfully?"
I let this pass, as I was intent on other matters. "But about curing this fault of mine," I went on; "if one person can't always be in two places at once, two people can always be in one place at once, and that—as you remark—practically amounts to the same thing in the long run. That I could manage, I think—with, of course, a little help from you. And, strange to say, it was about this arrangement that I came to see you to-day."