"I came upon two young people in a lane not long ago," said Elisabeth, "and the minute they saw me they began to walk in the ditches, one on one side of the road and one on the other. Now if only they had worn my costumes, such a damp and uncomfortable mode of going about the country would have been unnecessary; besides, it was absurd in any case. If you were walking with your mother-in-law you wouldn't walk as far apart as that; you wouldn't be able to hear a word she said."
"Ah! my dear young friend, that wouldn't matter," Lord Bobby interposed, "nor in any way interfere with the pleasure of the walk. Really nice men never make a fuss about little things like that. If only their mothers-in-law are kind enough to go out walking with them, they don't a bit mind how far off they walk. It is in questions such as this that men are really so much more unselfish than women; because the mothers-in-law do mind—they like us to be near enough to hear what they say."
"Green frocks would be very nice for the girls, especially if they were fair," said Lady Robert thoughtfully; "but I think the men would look rather queer in green, don't you? As if they were actors."
"I'm afraid they would look a bit dissipated," Elisabeth assented; "like almonds-and-raisins by daylight. By the way, I know nothing that looks more dissipated than almonds-and-raisins by daylight."
"Except, perhaps, one coffee-cup in the drawing-room the morning after a dinner party," suggested Farquhar.
Elisabeth demurred. "No; the coffee-cup is sad rather than sinful. It is as much part and parcel of a bygone time, as the Coliseum or the ruins of Pompeii; and the respectability of the survival of the fittest is its own. But almonds-and-raisins are different; to a certain class of society they represent the embodiment of refinement and luxury and self-indulgence."
Sir Wilfred Madderley laughed softly to himself. "I know exactly what you mean."
"Well, I don't agree with Miss Farringdon," Lord Bobby argued; "to my mind almonds-and-raisins are an emblem of respectability and moral worth, like chiffonniers and family albums and British matrons. No really bad man would feel at home with almonds-and-raisins, I'm certain; but I'd appoint as my trustee any man who could really enjoy them on a Sunday afternoon. Now take Kesterton, for instance; he's the type of man who would really appreciate them. My impression is that when his life comes to be written, it will be found that he took almonds-and-raisins in secret, as some men take absinthe and others opium."
"It is scandalous to reveal the secrets of the great in this manner," said Elisabeth, "and to lower our ideals of them!"
"Forgive me; but still you must always have faintly suspected Kesterton of respectability, even when you admired him most. All great men have their weaknesses; mine is melancholy and Lord K.'s respectability, and Shakespeare's was something quite as bad, but I can't recall just now what it was."