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Rh and I refused her. Then she went and put up some things called banns, I believe. Afterwards she sent me a white waistcoat in a brown paper parcel, and told me to meet her at a certain church on a certain day. I declined. She came in a hired carriage—a thing like a large deep bath, with two enormously fat parti-coloured horses—to fetch me. To avoid a scene I went with her, and I understand that we were married. But the colour of the window behind the altar was so atrocious, and the design—of Herodias carrying about the head of John the Baptist on a dish—so inartistically true to life, that I could not possibly attend to the service."

"Poor Esmé," said Lord Reggie, in a tone charged with pathos, "I must trust in my intuitions, then?"

"That is like trusting in one's convictions, Reggie. For the sake of the stars do not be sensible. I would far rather see you lying in your grave. Trust rather in your emotions."

"But I have none about Lady Locke. How could you suppose so?"

"I never suppose. I leave that to the heads of departments when they are answering questions in the House. It is the privilege of incompetence to suppose. The artist will always know. But there is Lady Locke,