"I saw Aphrodite by moonlight. She was wonderful."
"She is wonderful," Betty murmured. "Is love dead that you use the past tense? Will you take me to the fountain after dinner?"
"Yes."
A minute later Lady Randolph and the ladies left the dining-room. Mark poured himself out a glass of port. The men were talking of the approaching meeting at Ascot, where one of Lord Randolph's horses was likely to win the Gold Vase. Mark listened to Harry Kirtling's eager voice. How keen he was, this handsome lad! What a worshipper of horse and hound! And his host—old man of the world who had drunk of many cups—seemed to covet this gold vase as the one thing desirable. And when he had won it, the cup would glitter upon his sideboard among a score of similar trophies unnoticed and forgotten.
"I have the sermon almost by heart," Archie whispered to his brother. "I read it over three times before dinner. It's odd your treatment of the theme did not occur to me, particularly as I live in the Close."
"One doesn't see the Matterhorn when one is climbing it," Mark observed. "If you want to love Westchester live in Whitechapel."
"I couldn't live in Whitechapel," Archie replied; "it wouldn't suit me at all. Still, as a means to an end—Lord Randolph says that you—er—know what you're at."
"Do I?" said Mark. Then he laughed and struck his brother genially on the shoulder, adding: "At any rate, you know what you're at; but to men like me ignorance of the ultimate aim has its value. Perhaps because I don't quite know what I'm doing I take pleasure in doing it."
"You're a queer chap," said his brother, "and you grow queerer as you grow older. You mean that you would sooner have two birds in the bush than one in the hand."
"The nightingales in the bush—for me," cried Mark.