"What, Joey?" Nellie seemed to bring her thoughts back from a long way off. "Old maid? I should say not! We had a man. We nearly always do. Then everybody comes, and there's more glow. He was an English socialist—I guess he was a socialist. Burne-Jones hair, and a homespun jacket,—loose, and all that,—and a heavy ribbon on his glasses. He talked about the new man."
"The—what?"
"The new man." Nellie opened her eyes wide, as if her husband puzzled her.
"Well—I'm damned!"
Nellie broke into sudden mirth.
"You were, Joey dear; that is just what you were. You were damned all the way there and back again."
Cameron strangled.
"Have I the honor to typify the—new creature?"
"You're the very image of him, Joey dear." And she smiled upon him as if he were some new moth, in at their window, to buzz round their lamp.
"And—this person—?"