Page:The Yellow Book - 13.djvu/43

Rh and final break-ups. It's a delusion of inexperience to suppose that in changing your mistress you change the sport. It's the same trite old book, that you’ve read and read in different editions, until you’re sick of the very mention of it. To the deuce with love-affairs. But there’s such a thing as rational conversation, with no sentimental nonsense. Now, I'll not deny that I should rather like to have an occasional bit of rational conversation with that red-haired woman we met the other day in the park. Only, the devil of it is, she never appears.”

"And then, besides, her hair isn't red," added Hilary.

"I wonder how you can talk such folly," said Ferdinand.

"C'est mon métier, Uncle. You should answer me according to it. Her hair's not red. What little red there's in it, it requires strong sunlight to bring out. In shadow her hair’s a sort of dull brownish-yellow," Hilary persisted.

"You're colour-blind," retorted Ferdinand. "But I won't quarrel with you. The point is, she never appears. So how can I have my bits of rational conversation with her?"

"How indeed?" echoed Hilary, with pathos. "And therefore you re invoking storm and whirlwind. But hang a horseshoe over your bed to-night, turn round three times as you extinguish your candle, and let your last thought before you fall asleep be the thought of a newt's liver and a blind man s dog; and it's highly possible she will appear to-morrow."

I don't know whether Ferdinand Augustus accomplished the rites that Hilary prescribed, but it is certain that she did appear on the morrow: not by the pool or the carp, but in quite another region of Bellefontaine, where Ferdinand Augustus was wandering at hazard, somewhat disconsolately. There was a wide green meadow, sprinkled with buttercups and daisies; and under a great tree, at this end of it, he suddenly espied her. She was seated on Rh