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Functional Programming in C Classic Programming
Techniques for Modern Projects Wrox Programmer to
Programmer 1st Edition Oliver Sturm Digital Instant
Download
Author(s): Oliver Sturm
ISBN(s): 9780470744581, 0470744588
Edition: 1
File Details: PDF, 7.03 MB
Year: 2011
Language: english
PROFESSIONAL
FUNCTIONAL PROGRAMMING IN C#

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii

 PART I INTRODUCTION TO FUNCTIONAL PROGRAMMING

CHAPTER 1 A Look at Functional Programming History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
CHAPTER 2 Putting Functional Programming into a Modern Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

 PART II C# FOUNDATIONS OF FUNCTIONAL PROGRAMMING

CHAPTER 3 Functions, Delegates, and Lambda Expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17
CHAPTER 4 Flexible Typing with Generics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31
CHAPTER 5 Lazy Listing with Iterators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
CHAPTER 6 Encapsulating Data in Closures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
CHAPTER 7 Code Is Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .61

 PART III IMPLEMENTING WELL-KNOWN FUNCTIONAL

TECHNIQUES IN C#
CHAPTER 8 Currying and Partial Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
CHAPTER 9 Lazy Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
CHAPTER 10 Caching Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .101
CHAPTER 11 Calling Yourself. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
CHAPTER 12 Standard Higher Order Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
CHAPTER 13 Sequences. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
CHAPTER 14 Constructing Functions from Functions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
CHAPTER 15 Optional Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
CHAPTER 16 Keeping Data from Changing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
CHAPTER 17 Monads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

Continues
 PART IV PUTTING FUNCTIONAL PROGRAMMING INTO ACTION
CHAPTER 18 Integrating Functional Programming Approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
CHAPTER 19 The MapReduce Pattern . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
CHAPTER 20 Applied Functional Modularization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
CHAPTER 21 Existing Projects Using Functional Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247

INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
 PROFESSIONAL

Functional Programming in C#
CLASSIC PROGRAMMING TECHNIQUES
FOR MODERN PROJECTS

Oliver Sturm
Professional Functional Programming in C#: Classic Programming
Techniques for Modern Projects

This edition fi rst published 2011

©2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Registered offi ce

John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, United Kingdom

For details of our global editorial offi ces, for customer services and for information about how to apply for permission to
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978-0-470-74458-1
978-0-470-97028-7 (ebk)
978-0-470-97110-9 (ebk)
978-0-470-97109-3 (ebk)

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

OLIVER STURM has over 20 years experience developing professional software. He is a well-known
expert in various areas of application architecture, programming languages and the third party
.NET tools made by DevExpress. His main focus has been on the .NET platform since 2002.
Oliver has spoken at many international conferences and has written more than 20 training classes
and more than 100 magazine articles in English as well as German. He has also taught classes on
topics around computer programming for more than 15 years. For his contributions to the .NET
community, he has been awarded the C# MVP Award by Microsoft United Kingdom for several
years now.
Based in Scotland, UK, Oliver works as a freelance consultant and trainer, and he is an associate at
thinktecture, an international consultancy firm. You can find his blog at www.sturmnet.org/blog and
his commercial website at www.oliversturm.com. His e-mail address is [email protected].
CREDITS

VP CONSUMER AND TECHNOLOGY PROJECT EDITOR

PUBLISHING DIRECTOR Brian Herrmann
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CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION xiii

PART I: INTRODUCTION TO FUNCTIONAL PROGRAMMING

CHAPTER 1: A LOOK AT FUNCTIONAL PROGRAMMING HISTORY 3

What Is Functional Programming? 3

Functional Languages 5
The Relationship to Object Oriented Programming 7
Summary 8
CHAPTER 2: PUTTING FUNCTIONAL PROGRAMMING INTO
A MODERN CONTEXT 9

Managing Side Effects 10

Agile Programming Methodologies 11
Declarative Programming 11
Functional Programming Is a Mindset 12
Is Functional Programming in C# a Good Idea? 13
Summary 13

PART II: C# FOUNDATIONS OF FUNCTIONAL PROGRAMMING

CHAPTER 3: FUNCTIONS, DELEGATES, AND LAMBDA EXPRESSIONS 17

Functions and Methods 17

Reusing Functions 19
Anonymous Functions and Lambda Expressions 23
Extension Methods 26
Referential Transparency 28
Summary 30
CHAPTER 4: FLEXIBLE TYPING WITH GENERICS 31

Generic Functions 32
Generic Classes 34
Constraining Types 35
Other Generic Types 37
CONTENTS

Covariance and Contravariance 38

Summary 41
CHAPTER 5: LAZY LISTING WITH ITERATORS 43

The Meaning of Laziness 43

Enumerating Things with .NET 44
Implementing Iterator Functions 47
Returning IEnumerator 50
Chaining Iterators 51
Summary 53
CHAPTER 6: ENCAPSULATING DATA IN CLOSURES 55

Constructing Functions Dynamically 55

The Problem with Scope 56
How Closures Work 57
Summary 60
CHAPTER 7: CODE IS DATA 61

Expression Trees in .NET 63

Analyzing Expressions 64
Generating Expressions 68
.NET 4.0 Specifics 72
Summary 74

PART III: IMPLEMENTING WELL-KNOWN FUNCTIONAL TECHNIQUES IN C#

CHAPTER 8: CURRYING AND PARTIAL APPLICATION 77

Decoupling Parameters 77
Manual Currying 78
Automatic Currying 80
Calling Curried Functions 82
The Class Context 82
What FCSlib Contains 85
Calling Parts of Functions 86
Why Parameter Order Matters 88
Summary 89

viii
 CONTENTS

CHAPTER 9: LAZY EVALUATION 91

What’s Good about Being Lazy? 92

Passing Functions 93
Explicit Lazy Evaluation 95
Comparing the Lazy Evaluation Techniques 98
Usability 98
Efficiency 98
How Lazy Can You Be? 99
Summary 100
CHAPTER 10: CACHING TECHNIQUES 101

The Need to Remember 101

Precomputation 102
Memoization 107
Deep Memoization 110
Considerations on Memoization 114
Summary 115

CHAPTER 11: CALLING YOURSELF 117

Recursion in C# 117
Tail Recursion 119
Accumulator Passing Style 121
Continuation Passing Style 122
Indirect Recursion 126
Summary 129
CHAPTER 12: STANDARD HIGHER ORDER FUNCTIONS 131

Applying Operations: Map 132

Using Criteria: Filter 132
Accumulating: Fold 133
Map, Filter, and Fold in LINQ 138
Standard Higher Order Functions 140
Summary 140

ix
CONTENTS

CHAPTER 13: SEQUENCES 141

Understanding List Comprehensions 141

A Functional Approach to Iterators 142
Ranges 143
Restrictions 146
Summary 147
CHAPTER 14: CONSTRUCTING FUNCTIONS FROM FUNCTIONS 149

Composing Functions 149

Advanced Partial Application 152
Combining Approaches 155
Summary 158
CHAPTER 15: OPTIONAL VALUES 159

The Meaning of Nothing 159

Implementing Option(al) Values 160
Summary 165
CHAPTER 16: KEEPING DATA FROM CHANGING 167

Change Is Good — Not! 167

False Assumptions 168
Being Static Is Good 169
A Matter of Depth 170
Cloning 171
Automatic Cloning 173
Implementing Immutable Container Data Structures 177
Linked List 177
Queue 183
Unbalanced Binary Tree 185
Red/Black Tree 187
Alternatives to Persistent Data Types 190
Summary 191
CHAPTER 17: MONADS 193

What’s in a Typeclass? 194

What’s in a Monad? 197
Why Do a Whole Abstraction? 198

x
 CONTENTS

A Second Monad: Logging 201

Syntactic Sugar 203
Binding with SelectMany? 204
Summary 205

PART IV: PUTTING FUNCTIONAL PROGRAMMING INTO ACTION

CHAPTER 18: INTEGRATING FUNCTIONAL PROGRAMMING
APPROACHES 209

Refactoring 210
List Filtering with a Windows Forms UI 211
Calculating Mandelbrot Fractals 216
Writing New Code 224
Use Static Methods 224
Prefer Anonymous Methods Over Named Ones 226
Prefer Higher Order Functions over Manual Algorithm
Implementation 227
Prefer Immutable Data 228
Watch Behavior Implementation in Classes 229
Finding Likely Candidates for Functional Programming 229
Shades of Grey 230
Using What’s There 231
Summary 232
CHAPTER 19: THE MAPREDUCE PATTERN 233

Implementing MapReduce 234

Abstracting the Problem 237
Summary 240
CHAPTER 20: APPLIED FUNCTIONAL MODULARIZATION 241

Executing SQL Code from an Application 241

Rewriting the Function with Partial Application and
Precomputation in Mind 243
Summary 245

xi
CONTENTS

CHAPTER 21: EXISTING PROJECTS USING FUNCTIONAL

TECHNIQUES 247

The .NET Framework 247

LINQ 249
LINQ to Objects 249
LINQ to a Query Backend 253
Parallelization 255
Google MapReduce and Its Implementations 257
NUnit 258
Summary 260

INDEX 261

xii
INTRODUCTION

FUNCTIONAL PROGRAMMING is an important paradigm of programming that looks back on

a long history. The subject has always been very relevant to people who teach others how to
program — the clean and logical concepts of functional programming lend themselves especially
well to teaching. Certain industries that use computers and self-written programs heavily have also
found functional programming to be the most productive approach for their purposes. However,
for many of the “mainstream” software manufacturers, functional programming has long held an
air of the academic and they widely chose to use approaches with an imperative heritage, like object
orientation.
In recent years, more and more functional elements have been included in imperative languages on
the .NET platform, and with Visual Studio 2010, F# has been included — the fi rst hybrid functional
language in the box with Microsoft’s mainstream development platform. Even more than the
functional features that have been introduced to C# and VB.NET, this shows a commitment on
Microsoft’s side.

WHO THIS BOOK IS FOR

The topic of functional programming in C# can be seen from two different angles. On the .NET
platform there are many experienced developers and development teams, who have been using
C# or VB.NET, or in some cases C++, to create software for the platform. If you have that sort of
experience, there are lots of reasons you should be looking into functional programming: it’s a clean
and easily maintainable style, it ’s an important basis of programming as we know it today, and
certain specific current concerns, like parallelization, can be targeted successfully with the help of
functional programming ideas.
On the other hand, perhaps you’re not a .NET programmer at all. Instead, you have experience in
one or more “traditional” functional programming languages. You need to work with people who
use C#, or you want to use the language yourself. This book will help you understand how you
can use the approaches you’re familiar with in C#, and it may give you valuable starting points when
it comes to explaining these ideas to team members without your functional background.
The book assumes a basic level of understanding of C# language constructs, at least up to
version 3.0 of the language. However, Part II is written to explain a few particular features of the
language that are especially important, rather complex or often misunderstood. From experience,
I recommend you give Part II a good look even if you’re quite fluent in C# — there are usually some
little-known intricacies about the features that have been selected for this part, which may lead to
misunderstandings later.
INTRODUCTION

WHAT THIS BOOK COVERS

The language of the vast majority of examples in this book is C# 4.0, running on Microsoft .NET.
There are a few examples in other languages, but they are for illustrative purposes only. If you
want to try out the examples for yourself, but you’re not on C# 4.0 or Visual Studio 2010 yet,
you may still have success using C# 3.0 and Visual Studio 2008 — there aren’t many new features
in C# 4.0 specifically, and none of them have been exploited in the examples. However, a few
examples utilize .NET Framework features like Parallel Extensions, which are available only
in .NET 4.0.
The book introduces you to concepts of functional programming and describes how these can
be used with the C# language. An effort has been made to provide samples with a practical
background, but most of them still focus mostly on language level considerations. Functional
programming is a technique for code, algorithm and program structure — as opposed to, for
instance, application architecture. Of course it needs to fit in with application architecture . . . you
get the point: it’s sometimes hard to find the perfect compromise between being too theoretical and
going off-focus, but I’ve tried my best.
While I wrote this book, I developed a library of functionally oriented helpers, called FCSlib (that ’s
“Functional CSharp Library”). You can use this library in your own projects as you like, but please
note that it doesn’t come with any warranty. The downloadable fi le containing the library code
(more information about downloads in the upcoming section “Source Code”) includes a copy of the
LGPL license text, which applies to the FCSlib code.

HOW THIS BOOK IS STRUCTURED

This book has four parts. The first part provides an overview of functional programming, both
from a historical and a current point of view. Part II proceeds to give you the C# background
you’ll need to understand the more complex examples that follow later. Again, reading this is
recommended even if you know C# — it does have a few pretty basic items, but generally it’s not
meant to be a language introduction for newbies.
Part III is the most important one. Its 10 chapters describe a variety of functional programming
topics from a C# point of view, showing lots of examples and code snippets. The code library that
accompanies this book, FCSlib, is built on the ideas described in this part.
Finally, Part IV gives you an overview of practical concerns of using functional programming in
C#. I picked a few specific scenarios, and there are descriptions of functional programming ideas in
existing products and technologies that you may be familiar with.

WHAT YOU NEED TO USE THIS BOOK

All code in this book has been tested with Visual Studio 2010, C# 4.0 and .NET 4.0. Much of it
has been originally developed on C# 3.0, so you should have good success running the code on
.NET 3.5. Going back further than that would mean major rewrites in many areas — the concepts

xiv
 INTRODUCTION

may translate even to C# 2.0 in many cases, but the language features that make them reasonably
easy to use are just not available in that version.
I have made several attempts to build the code on the Mono platform, but unfortunately I stumbled
upon compiler bugs every time. Your mileage may vary if you try to use Mono — after all, it
changes all the time.

CONVENTIONS
To help you get the most from the text and keep track of what’s happening, we’ve used a number
of conventions throughout the book.

The pencil icon indicates notes, tips, hints, tricks, and asides to the current
discussion.

As for styles in the text:

➤ We italicize new terms and important words when we introduce them.
➤ We show keyboard strokes like this: Ctrl+A.
➤ We show fi le names, URLs, and code within the text like so: persistence.properties.
➤ We present code in two different ways:

We use a monofont type with no highlighting for most code examples.

We use bold to emphasize code that is particularly important in the present
context or to show changes from a previous code snippet.

SOURCE CODE
As you work through the examples in this book, you may choose either to type in all the code
manually, or to use the source code fi les that accompany the book. All the source code used in this
book is available for download at www.wrox.com. When at the site, simply locate the book’s title
(use the Search box or one of the title lists) and click the Download Code link on the book ’s detail
page to obtain all the source code for the book. Code that is included on the website is highlighted
by the following icon:

Available for
download on
Wrox.com

xv
INTRODUCTION

Listings include the fi lename in the title. If it is just a code snippet, you’ll fi nd the fi lename in a code
note such as this:
Code snippet filename

Because many books have similar titles, you may fi nd it easiest to search by
ISBN; this book’s ISBN is 978 - 0 - 470 -74458 -1.

Once you download the code, just decompress it with your favorite compression tool. Alternately,
you can go to the main Wrox code download page at www.wrox.com/dynamic/books/download
.aspx to see the code available for this book and all other Wrox books.

ERRATA
We make every effort to ensure that there are no errors in the text or in the code. However, no one
is perfect, and mistakes do occur. If you fi nd an error in one of our books, like a spelling mistake
or faulty piece of code, we would be very grateful for your feedback. By sending in errata, you may
save another reader hours of frustration, and at the same time, you will be helping us provide even
higher quality information.
To fi nd the errata page for this book, go to www.wrox.com and locate the title using the Search box
or one of the title lists. Then, on the book details page, click the Book Errata link. On this page, you
can view all errata that has been submitted for this book and posted by Wrox editors. A complete
book list, including links to each book ’s errata, is also available at www.wrox.com/misc-pages/
booklist.shtml.

If you don’t spot “your” error on the Book Errata page, go to www.wrox.com/contact/
techsupport.shtml and complete the form there to send us the error you have found. We’ll check
the information and, if appropriate, post a message to the book ’s errata page and fi x the problem in
subsequent editions of the book.

P2P.WROX.COM
For author and peer discussion, join the P2P forums at p2p.wrox.com. The forums are a Web-based
system for you to post messages relating to Wrox books and related technologies and interact with
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industry experts, and your fellow readers are present on these forums.

xvi
 INTRODUCTION

At p2p.wrox.com, you will fi nd a number of different forums that will help you, not only as you
read this book, but also as you develop your own applications. To join the forums, just follow
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xvii
Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The private
life, The wheel of time, Lord Beaupré, The
visits, Collaboration, Owen Wingrave.
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
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under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
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you are located before using this eBook.

Title: The private life, The wheel of time, Lord Beaupré, The visits,
Collaboration, Owen Wingrave.

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Release date: January 26, 2021 [eBook #64396]

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generously made available by Hathi Trust Digital Library.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRIVATE

LIFE, THE WHEEL OF TIME, LORD BEAUPRÉ, THE VISITS,
COLLABORATION, OWEN WINGRAVE. ***
 THE PRIVATE LIFE
THE WHEEL OF TIME LORD BEAUPRÉ

THE VISITS COLLABORATION

OWEN WINGRAVE

BY

HENRY JAMES
LONDON

JAMES R. OSGOOD, McILVAINE & CO.

45, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.

1893

CONTENTS

The Private Life

The Wheel of Time
Lord Beaupré
The Visits
Collaboration
Owen Wingrave

THE PRIVATE LIFE

We talked of London, face to face with a great bristling, primeval
glacier. The hour and the scene were one of those impressions which
make up a little, in Switzerland, for the modern indignity of travel—
the promiscuities and vulgarities, the station and the hotel, the
gregarious patience, the struggle for a scrappy attention, the
reduction to a numbered state. The high valley was pink with the
mountain rose, the cool air as fresh as if the world were young.
There was a faint flush of afternoon on undiminished snows, and the
fraternizing tinkle of the unseen cattle came to us with a cropped
and sun-warmed odour. The balconied inn stood on the very neck of
the sweetest pass in the Oberland, and for a week we had had
company and weather. This was felt to be great luck, for one would
have made up for the other had either been bad.
The weather certainly would have made up for the company; but it
was not subjected to this tax, for we had by a happy chance the
fleur des pois: Lord and Lady Mellifont, Clare Vawdrey, the greatest
(in the opinion of many) of our literary glories, and Blanche Adney,
the greatest (in the opinion of all) of our theatrical. I mention these
first, because they were just the people whom in London, at that
time, people tried to "get." People endeavoured to "book" them six
weeks ahead, yet on this occasion we had come in for them, we had
all come in for each other, without the least wire-pulling. A turn of
the game had pitched us together, the last of August, and we
recognized our luck by remaining so, under protection of the
barometer. When the golden days were over—that would come soon
enough—we should wind down opposite sides of the pass and
disappear over the crest of surrounding heights. We were of the
same general communion, we participated in the same
miscellaneous publicity. We met, in London, with irregular frequency;
we were more or less governed by the laws and the language, the
traditions and the shibboleths of the same dense social state. I think
all of us, even the ladies, "did" something, though we pretended we
didn't when it was mentioned. Such things are not mentioned indeed
in London, but it was our innocent pleasure to be different here.
There had to be some way to show the difference, inasmuch as we
were under the impression that this was our annual holiday. We felt
at any rate that the conditions were more human than in London, or
that at least we ourselves were. We were frank about this, we talked
about it: it was what we were talking about as we looked at the
flushing glacier, just as some one called attention to the prolonged
absence of Lord Mellifont and Mrs. Adney. We were seated on the
terrace of the inn, where there were benches and little tables, and
those of us who were most bent on proving that we had returned to
nature were, in the queer Germanic fashion, having coffee before
meat.
The remark about the absence of our two companions was not taken
up, not even by Lady Mellifont, not even by little Adney, the fond
composer; for it had been dropped only in the briefest intermission
of Clare Vawdrey's talk. (This celebrity was "Clarence" only on the
title-page.) It was just that revelation of our being after all human
that was his theme. He asked the company whether, candidly, every
one hadn't been tempted to say to every one else: "I had no idea
you were really so nice." I had had, for my part, an idea that he
was, and even a good deal nicer, but that was too complicated to go
into then; besides it is exactly my story. There was a general
understanding among us that when Vawdrey talked we should be
silent, and not, oddly enough, because he at all expected it. He
didn't, for of all abundant talkers he was the most unconscious, the
least greedy and professional. It was rather the religion of the host,
of the hostess, that prevailed among us: it was their own idea, but
they always looked for a listening circle when the great novelist
dined with them. On the occasion I allude to there was probably no
one present with whom, in London, he had not dined, and we felt
the force of this habit. He had dined even with me; and on the
evening of that dinner, as on this Alpine afternoon, I had been at no
pains to hold my tongue, absorbed as I inveterately was in a study
of the question which always rose before me, to such a height, in his
fair, square, strong stature.
This question was all the more tormenting that he never suspected
himself (I am sure) of imposing it, any more than he had ever
observed that every day of his life every one listened to him at
dinner. He used to be called "subjective" in the weekly papers, but in
society no distinguished man could have been less so. He never
talked about himself; and this was a topic on which, though it would
have been tremendously worthy of him, he apparently never even
reflected. He had his hours and his habits, his tailor and his hatter,
his hygiene and his particular wine, but all these things together
never made up an attitude. Yet they constituted the only attitude he
ever adopted, and it was easy for him to refer to our being "nicer"
abroad than at home. He was exempt from variations, and not a
shade either less or more nice in one place than in another. He
differed from other people, but never from himself (save in the
extraordinary sense which I will presently explain), and struck me as
having neither moods nor sensibilities nor preferences. He might
have been always in the same company, so far as he recognized any
influence from age or condition or sex: he addressed himself to
women exactly as he addressed himself to men, and gossiped with
all men alike, talking no better to clever folk than to dull. I used to
feel a despair at his way of liking one subject—so far as I could tell—
precisely as much as another: there were some I hated so myself. I
never found him anything but loud and cheerful and copious, and I
never heard him utter a paradox or express a shade or play with an
idea. That fancy about our being "human" was, in his conversation,
quite an exceptional flight. His opinions were sound and second-rate,
and of his perceptions it was too mystifying to think. I envied him his
magnificent health.
Vawdrey had marched, with his even pace and his perfectly good
conscience, into the flat country of anecdote, where stories are
visible from afar like windmills and signposts; but I observed after a
little that Lady Mellifont's attention wandered. I happened to be
sitting next her. I noticed that her eyes rambled a little anxiously
over the lower slopes of the mountains. At last, after looking at her
watch, she said to me: "Do you know where they went?"
"Do you mean Mrs. Adney and Lord Mellifont?"
"Lord Mellifont and Mrs. Adney." Her ladyship's speech seemed—
unconsciously indeed—to correct me, but it didn't occur to me that
this was because she was jealous. I imputed to her no such vulgar
sentiment: in the first place, because I liked her, and in the second
because it would always occur to one quickly that it was right, in any
connection, to put Lord Mellifont first. He was first—extraordinarily
first. I don't say greatest or wisest or most renowned, but essentially
at the top of the list and the head of the table. That is a position by
itself, and his wife was naturally accustomed to see him in it. My
phrase had sounded as if Mrs. Adney had taken him; but it was not
possible for him to be taken—he only took. No one, in the nature of
things, could know this better than Lady Mellifont. I had originally
been rather afraid of her, thinking her, with her stiff silences and the
extreme blackness of almost everything that made up her person,
somewhat hard, even a little saturnine. Her paleness seemed slightly
grey, and her glossy black hair metallic, like the brooches and bands
and combs with which it was inveterately adorned. She was in
perpetual mourning, and wore numberless ornaments of jet and
onyx, a thousand clicking chains and bugles and beads. I had heard
Mrs. Adney call her the queen of night, and the term was descriptive
if you understood that the night was cloudy. She had a secret, and if
you didn't find it out as you knew her better you at least perceived
that she was gentle and unaffected and limited, and also rather
submissively sad. She was like a woman with a painless malady. I
told her that I had merely seen her husband and his companion
stroll down the glen together about an hour before, and suggested
that Mr. Adney would perhaps know something of their intentions.
Vincent Adney, who, though he was fifty years old, looked like a
good little boy on whom it had been impressed that children should
not talk before company, acquitted himself with remarkable
simplicity and taste of the position of husband of a great exponent
of comedy. When all was said about her making it easy for him, one
couldn't help admiring the charmed affection with which he took
everything for granted. It is difficult for a husband who is not on the
stage, or at least in the theatre, to be graceful about a wife who is;
but Adney was more than graceful—he was exquisite, he was
inspired. He set his beloved to music; and you remember how
genuine his music could be—the only English compositions I ever
saw a foreigner take an interest in. His wife was in them,
somewhere, always; they were like a free, rich translation of the
impression she produced. She seemed, as one listened, to pass
laughing, with loosened hair, across the scene. He had been only a
little fiddler at her theatre, always in his place during the acts; but
she had made him something rare and misunderstood. Their
superiority had become a kind of partnership, and their happiness
was a part of the happiness of their friends. Adney's one discomfort
was that he couldn't write a play for his wife, and the only way he
meddled with her affairs was by asking impossible people if they
couldn't.
Lady Mellifont, after looking across at him a moment, remarked to
me that she would rather not put any question to him. She added
the next minute: "I had rather people shouldn't see I'm nervous."
"Are you nervous?"
"I always become so if my husband is away from me for any time."
"Do you imagine something has happened to him?"
"Yes, always. Of course I'm used to it."
"Do you mean his tumbling over precipices—that sort of thing?"
"I don't know exactly what it is: it's the general sense that he'll
never come back."
She said so much and kept back so much that the only way to treat
the condition she referred to seemed the jocular. "Surely he'll never
forsake you!" I laughed.
She looked at the ground a moment. "Oh, at bottom I'm easy."
"Nothing can ever happen to a man so accomplished, so infallible, so
armed at all points," I went on, encouragingly.
"Oh, you don't know how he's armed!" she exclaimed, with such an
odd quaver that I could account for it only by her being nervous.
This idea was confirmed by her moving just afterwards, changing
her seat rather pointlessly, not as if to cut our conversation short,
but because she was in a fidget. I couldn't know what was the
matter with her, but I was presently relieved to see Mrs. Adney come
toward us. She had in her hand a big bunch of wild flowers, but she
was not closely attended by Lord Mellifont. I quickly saw, however,
that she had no disaster to announce; yet as I knew there was a
question Lady Mellifont would like to hear answered, but did not
wish to ask, I expressed to her immediately the hope that his
lordship had not remained in a crevasse.
"Oh, no; he left me but three minutes ago. He has gone into the
house." Blanche Adney rested her eyes on mine an instant—a mode
of intercourse to which no man, for himself, could ever object. The
interest, on this occasion, was quickened by the particular thing the
eyes happened to say. What they usually said was only: "Oh, yes,
I'm charming, I know, but don't make a fuss about it. I only want a
new part—I do, I do!" At present they added, dimly, surreptitiously,
and of course sweetly—for that was the way they did everything:
"It's all right, but something did happen. Perhaps I'll tell you later."
She turned to Lady Mellifont, and the transition to simple gaiety
suggested her mastery of her profession. "I've brought him safe. We
had a charming walk."
"I'm so very glad," returned Lady Mellifont, with her faint smile;
continuing vaguely, as she got up: "He must have gone to dress for
dinner. Isn't it rather near?" She moved away, to the hotel, in her
leave-taking, simplifying fashion, and the rest of us, at the mention
of dinner, looked at each other's watches, as if to shift the
responsibility of such grossness. The head-waiter, essentially, like all
head-waiters, a man of the world, allowed us hours and places of
our own, so that in the evening, apart under the lamp, we formed a
compact, an indulged little circle. But it was only the Mellifonts who
"dressed" and as to whom it was recognized that they naturally
would dress: she in exactly the same manner as on any other
evening of her ceremonious existence (she was not a woman whose
habits could take account of anything so mutable as fitness); and
he, on the other hand, with remarkable adjustment and suitability.
He was almost as much a man of the world as the head-waiter, and
spoke almost as many languages; but he abstained from courting a
comparison of dress-coats and white waistcoats, analyzing the
occasion in a much finer way—into black velvet and blue velvet and
brown velvet, for instance, into delicate harmonies of necktie and
subtle informalities of shirt. He had a costume for every function and
a moral for every costume; and his functions and costumes and
morals were ever a part of the amusement of life—a part at any rate
of its beauty and romance—for an immense circle of spectators. For
his particular friends indeed these things were more than an
amusement; they were a topic, a social support and of course, in
addition, a subject of perpetual suspense. If his wife had not been
present before dinner they were what the rest of us probably would
have been putting our heads together about.
Clare Vawdrey had a fund of anecdote on the whole question: he
had known Lord Mellifont almost from the beginning. It was a
peculiarity of this nobleman that there could be no conversation
about him that didn't instantly take the form of anecdote, and a still
further distinction that there could apparently be no anecdote that
was not on the whole to his honour. If he had come into a room at
any moment, people might have said frankly: "Of course we were
telling stories about you!" As consciences go, in London, the general
conscience would have been good. Moreover it would have been
impossible to imagine his taking such a tribute otherwise than
amiably, for he was always as unperturbed as an actor with the right
cue. He had never in his life needed the prompter—his very
embarrassments had been rehearsed. For myself, when he was
talked about I always had an odd impression that we were speaking
of the dead—it was with that peculiar accumulation of relish. His
reputation was a kind of gilded obelisk, as if he had been buried
beneath it; the body of legend and reminiscence of which he was to
be the subject had crystallized in advance.
This ambiguity sprang, I suppose, from the fact that the mere sound
of his name and air of his person, the general expectation he
created, were, somehow, too exalted to be verified. The experience
of his urbanity always came later; the prefigurement, the legend
paled before the reality. I remember that on the evening I refer to
the reality was particularly operative. The handsomest man of his
period could never have looked better, and he sat among us like a
bland conductor controlling by an harmonious play of arm an
orchestra still a little rough. He directed the conversation by gestures
as irresistible as they were vague; one felt as if without him it
wouldn't have had anything to call a tone. This was essentially what
he contributed to any occasion—what he contributed above all to
English public life. He pervaded it, he coloured it, he embellished it,
and without him it would scarcely have had a vocabulary. Certainly it
would not have had a style; for a style was what it had in having
Lord Mellifont. He was a style. I was freshly struck with it as, in the
salle à manger of the little Swiss inn, we resigned ourselves to
inevitable veal. Confronted with his form (I must parenthesize that it
was not confronted much), Clare Vawdrey's talk suggested the
reporter contrasted with the bard. It was interesting to watch the
shock of characters from which, of an evening, so much would be
expected. There was however no concussion—it was all muffled and
minimized in Lord Mellifont's tact. It was rudimentary with him to
find the solution of such a problem in playing the host, assuming
responsibilities which carried with them their sacrifice. He had
indeed never been a guest in his life; he was the host, the patron,
the moderator at every board. If there was a defect in his manner
(and I suggest it under my breath), it was that he had a little more
art than any conjunction—even the most complicated—could
possibly require. At any rate one made one's reflections in noticing
how the accomplished peer handled the situation and how the
sturdy man of letters was unconscious that the situation (and least
of all he himself as part of it), was handled. Lord Mellifont poured
forth treasures of tact, and Clare Vawdrey never dreamed he was
doing it.
Vawdrey had no suspicion of any such precaution even when
Blanche Adney asked him if he saw yet their third act—an inquiry
into which she introduced a subtlety of her own. She had a theory
that he was to write her a play and that the heroine, if he would
only do his duty, would be the part for which she had immemorially
longed. She was forty years old (this could be no secret to those
who had admired her from the first), and she could now reach out
her hand and touch her uttermost goal. This gave a kind of tragic
passion—perfect actress of comedy as she was—to her desire not to
miss the great thing. The years had passed, and still she had missed
it; none of the things she had done was the thing she had dreamed
of, so that at present there was no more time to lose. This was the
canker in the rose, the ache beneath the smile. It made her touching
—made her sadness even sweeter than her laughter. She had done
the old English and the new French, and had charmed her
generation; but she was haunted by the vision of a bigger chance, of
something truer to the conditions that lay near her. She was tired of
Sheridan and she hated Bowdler; she called for a canvas of a finer
grain. The worst of it, to my sense, was that she would never extract
her modern comedy from the great mature novelist, who was as
incapable of producing it as he was of threading a needle. She
coddled him, she talked to him, she made love to him, as she frankly
proclaimed; but she dwelt in illusions—she would have to live and
die with Bowdler.
It is difficult to be cursory over this charming woman, who was
beautiful without beauty and complete with a dozen deficiencies.
The perspective of the stage made her over, and in society she was
like the model off the pedestal. She was the picture walking about,
which to the artless social mind was a perpetual surprise—a miracle.
People thought she told them the secrets of the pictorial nature, in
return for which they gave her relaxation and tea. She told them
nothing and she drank the tea; but they had, all the same, the best
of the bargain. Vawdrey was really at work on a play; but if he had
begun it because he liked her I think he let it drag for the same
reason. He secretly felt the atrocious difficulty—knew that from his
hand the finished piece would have received no active life. At the
same time nothing could be more agreeable than to have such a
question open with Blanche Adney, and from time to time he put
something very good into the play. If he deceived Mrs. Adney it was
only because in her despair she was determined to be deceived. To
her question about their third act he replied that, before dinner, he
had written a magnificent passage.
"Before dinner?" I said. "Why, cher maître, before dinner you were
holding us all spellbound on the terrace."
My words were a joke, because I thought his had been; but for the
first time that I could remember I perceived a certain confusion in
his face. He looked at me hard, throwing back his head quickly, the
least bit like a horse who has been pulled up short. "Oh, it was
before that," he replied, naturally enough.
"Before that you were playing billiards with me," Lord Mellifont
intimated.
"Then it must have been yesterday," said Vawdrey.
But he was in a tight place. "You told me this morning you did
nothing yesterday," the actress objected.
"I don't think I really know when I do things." Vawdrey looked
vaguely, without helping himself, at a dish that was offered him.
"It's enough if we know," smiled Lord Mellifont.
"I don't believe you've written a line," said Blanche Adney.
"I think I could repeat you the scene." Vawdrey helped himself to
haricots verts.
"Oh, do—oh, do!" two or three of us cried.
"After dinner, in the salon; it will be an immense régal," Lord
Mellifont declared.
"I'm not sure, but I'll try," Vawdrey went on.
"Oh, you lovely man!" exclaimed the actress, who was practising
Americanisms, being resigned even to an American comedy.
"But there must be this condition," said Vawdrey: "you must make
your husband play."
"Play while you're reading? Never!"
"I've too much vanity," said Adney.
Lord Mellifont distinguished him. "You must give us the overture,
before the curtain rises. That's a peculiarly delightful moment."
"I sha'n't read—I shall just speak," said Vawdrey.
"Better still, let me go and get your manuscript," the actress
suggested.
Vawdrey replied that the manuscript didn't matter; but an hour later,
in the salon, we wished he might have had it. We sat expectant, still
under the spell of Adney's violin. His wife, in the foreground, on an
ottoman, was all impatience and profile, and Lord Mellifont, in the
chair—it was always the chair, Lord Mellifont's—made our grateful
little group feel like a social science congress or a distribution of
prizes. Suddenly, instead of beginning, our tame lion began to roar
out of tune—he had clean forgotten every word. He was very sorry,
but the lines absolutely wouldn't come to him; he was utterly
ashamed, but his memory was a blank. He didn't look in the least
ashamed—Vawdrey had never looked ashamed in his life; he was
only imperturbably and merrily natural. He protested that he had
never expected to make such a fool of himself, but we felt that this
wouldn't prevent the incident from taking its place among his jolliest
reminiscences. It was only we who were humiliated, as if he had
played us a premeditated trick. This was an occasion, if ever, for
Lord Mellifont's tact, which descended on us all like balm: he told us,
in his charming artistic way, his way of bridging over arid intervals
(he had a débit—there was nothing to approach it in England—like
the actors of the Comédie Française), of his own collapse on a
momentous occasion, the delivery of an address to a mighty
multitude, when, finding he had forgotten his memoranda, he
fumbled, on the terrible platform, the cynosure of every eye,
fumbled vainly in irreproachable pockets for indispensable notes. But
the point of his story was finer than that of Vawdrey's pleasantry; for
he sketched with a few light gestures the brilliancy of a performance
which had risen superior to embarrassment, had resolved itself, we
were left to divine, into an effort recognised at the moment as not
absolutely a blot on what the public was so good as to call his
reputation.
"Play up—play up!" cried Blanche Adney, tapping her husband and
remembering how, on the stage, a contretemps is always drowned
in music. Adney threw himself upon his fiddle, and I said to Clare
Vawdrey that his mistake could easily be corrected by his sending for
the manuscript. If he would tell me where it was I would
immediately fetch it from his room. To this he replied: "My dear
fellow, I'm afraid there is no manuscript."
"Then you've not written anything?"
"I'll write it to-morrow."
"Ah, you trifle with us," I said, in much mystification.
Vawdrey hesitated an instant. "If there is anything, you'll find it on
my table."
At this moment one of the others spoke to him, and Lady Mellifont
remarked audibly, as if to correct gently our want of consideration,
that Mr. Adney was playing something very beautiful. I had noticed
before that she appeared extremely fond of music; she always
listened to it in a hushed transport. Vawdrey's attention was drawn
away, but it didn't seem to me that the words he had just dropped
constituted a definite permission to go to his room. Moreover I
wanted to speak to Blanche Adney; I had something to ask her. I
had to await my chance, however, as we remained silent awhile for
her husband, after which the conversation became general. It was
our habit to go to bed early, but there was still a little of the evening
left. Before it quite waned I found an opportunity to tell the actress
that Vawdrey had given me leave to put my hand on his manuscript.
She adjured me, by all I held sacred, to bring it immediately, to give
it to her; and her insistence was proof against my suggestion that it
would now be too late for him to begin to read: besides which the
charm was broken—the others wouldn't care. It was not too late for
her to begin; therefore I was to possess myself, without more delay,
of the precious pages. I told her she should be obeyed in a moment,
but I wanted her first to satisfy my just curiosity. What had
happened before dinner, while she was on the hills with Lord
Mellifont?
"How do you know anything happened?"
"I saw it in your face when you came back."
"And they call me an actress!" cried Mrs. Adney.
"What do they call me?" I inquired.
"You're a searcher of hearts—that frivolous thing an observer."
"I wish you'd let an observer write you a play!" I broke out.
"People don't care for what you write: you'd break any run of luck."
"Well, I see plays all round me," I declared; "the air is full of them
to-night."
"The air? Thank you for nothing! I only wish my table-drawers
were."
"Did he make love to you on the glacier?" I went on.
She stared; then broke into the graduated ecstasy of her laugh.
"Lord Mellifont, poor dear? What a funny place! It would indeed be
the place for our love!"
"Did he fall into a crevasse?" I continued.
Blanche Adney looked at me again as she had done for an instant
when she came up, before dinner, with her hands full of flowers. "I
don't know into what he fell. I'll tell you to-morrow."
"He did come down, then?"
"Perhaps he went up," she laughed. "It's really strange."
"All the more reason you should tell me to-night."
"I must think it over; I must puzzle it out."
"Oh, if you want conundrums I'll throw in another," I said. "What's
the matter with the master?"
"The master of what?"
"Of every form of dissimulation. Vawdrey hasn't written a line."
"Go and get his papers and we'll see."
"I don't like to expose him," I said.
"Why not, if I expose Lord Mellifont?"
"Oh, I'd do anything for that," I conceded. "But why should Vawdrey
have made a false statement? It's very curious."
"It's very curious," Blanche Adney repeated, with a musing air and
her eyes on Lord Mellifont. Then, rousing herself, she added: "Go
and look in his room."
"In Lord Mellifont's?"
She turned to me quickly. "That would be a way!"
"A way to what?"
"To find out—to find out!" She spoke gaily and excitedly, but
suddenly checked herself. "We're talking nonsense," she said.
"We're mixing things up, but I'm struck with your idea. Get Lady
Mellifont to let you."
"Oh, she has looked!" Mrs. Adney murmured, with the oddest
dramatic expression. Then, after a movement of her beautiful
uplifted hand, as if to brush away a fantastic vision, she exclaimed
imperiously: "Bring me the scene—bring me the scene!"
"I go for it," I answered; "but don't tell me I can't write a play."
She left me, but my errand was arrested by the approach of a lady
who had produced a birthday-book—we had been threatened with it
for several evenings—and who did me the honour to solicit my
autograph. She had been asking the others, and she couldn't
decently leave me out. I could usually remember my name, but it
always took me some time to recall my date, and even when I had
done so I was never very sure. I hesitated between two days and I
remarked to my petitioner that I would sign on both if it would give
her any satisfaction. She said that surely I had been born only once;
and I replied of course that on the day I made her acquaintance I
had been born again. I mention the feeble joke only to show that,
with the obligatory inspection of the other autographs, we gave
some minutes to this transaction. The lady departed with her book,
and then I became aware that the company had dispersed. I was
alone in the little salon that had been appropriated to our use. My
first impression was one of disappointment: if Vawdrey had gone to
bed I didn't wish to disturb him. While I hesitated, however. I
recognised that Vawdrey had not gone to bed. A window was open,
and the sound of voices outside came in to me: Blanche was on the
terrace with her dramatist, and they were talking about the stars. I
went to the window for a glimpse—the Alpine night was splendid.
My friends had stepped out together; the actress had picked up a
cloak; she looked as I had seen her look in the wing of the theatre.
They were silent awhile, and I heard the roar of a neighbouring
torrent. I turned back into the room, and its quiet lamplight gave me
an idea. Our companions had dispersed—it was late for a pastoral
country—and we three should have the place to ourselves. Clare
Vawdrey had written his scene—it was magnificent; and his reading
it to us there, at such an hour, would be an episode intensely
memorable. I would bring down his manuscript and meet the two
with it as they came in.
I quitted the salon for this purpose; I had been in Vawdrey's room
and knew it was on the second floor, the last in a long corridor. A
minute later my hand was on the knob of his door, which I naturally
pushed open without knocking. It was equally natural that in the
absence of its occupant the room should be dark; the more so as,
the end of the corridor being at that hour unlighted, the obscurity
was not immediately diminished by the opening of the door. I was
only aware at first that I had made no mistake and that, the
window-curtains not being drawn, I was confronted with a couple of
vague starlighted apertures. Their aid, however, was not sufficient to
enable me to find what I had come for, and my hand, in my pocket,
was already on the little box of matches that I always carried for
cigarettes. Suddenly I withdrew it with a start, uttering an
ejaculation, an apology. I had entered the wrong room; a glance
prolonged for three seconds showed me a figure seated at a table
near one of the windows—a figure I had at first taken for a
travelling-rug thrown over a chair. I retreated, with a sense of
intrusion; but as I did so I became aware, more rapidly than it takes
me to express it, in the first place that this was Vawdrey's room and
in the second that, most singularly, Vawdrey himself sat before me.
Checking myself on the threshold I had a momentary feeling of
bewilderment, but before I knew it I had exclaimed: "Hullo! is that
you, Vawdrey?"
He neither turned nor answered me, but my question received an
immediate and practical reply in the opening of a door on the other
side of the passage. A servant, with a candle, had come out of the
opposite room, and in this flitting illumination I definitely recognised
the man whom, an instant before, I had to the best of my belief left
below in conversation with Mrs. Adney. His back was half turned to
me, and he bent over the table in the attitude of writing, but I was
conscious that I was in no sort of error about his identity. "I beg
your pardon—I thought you were downstairs," I said; and as the
personage gave no sign of hearing me I added: "If you're busy I
won't disturb you." I backed out, closing the door—I had been in the
place, I suppose, less than a minute. I had a sense of mystification,
which however deepened infinitely the next instant. I stood there
with my hand still on the knob of the door, overtaken by the oddest
impression of my life. Vawdrey was at his table, writing, and it was a
very natural place for him to be; but why was he writing in the dark
and why hadn't he answered me? I waited a few seconds for the
sound of some movement, to see if he wouldn't rouse himself from
his abstraction—a fit conceivable in a great writer—and call out: "Oh,
my dear fellow, is it you?" But I heard only the stillness, I felt only
the starlighted dusk of the room, with the unexpected presence it
enclosed. I turned away, slowly retracing my steps, and came
confusedly downstairs. The lamp was still burning in the salon, but
the room was empty. I passed round to the door of the hotel and
stepped out. Empty too was the terrace. Blanche Adney and the
gentleman with her had apparently come in. I hung about five
minutes; then I went to bed.
I slept badly, for I was agitated. On looking back at these queer
occurrences (you will see presently that they were queer), I perhaps
suppose myself more agitated than I was; for great anomalies are
never so great at first as after we have reflected upon them. It takes
us some time to exhaust explanations. I was vaguely nervous—I had
been sharply startled; but there was nothing I could not clear up by
asking Blanche Adney, the first thing in the morning, who had been
with her on the terrace. Oddly enough, however, when the morning
dawned—it dawned admirably—I felt less desire to satisfy myself on
this point than to escape, to brush away the shadow of my
stupefaction. I saw the day would be splendid, and the fancy took
me to spend it, as I had spent happy days of youth, in a lonely
mountain ramble. I dressed early, partook of conventional coffee,
put a big roll into one pocket and a small flask into the other, and,
with a stout stick in my hand, went forth into the high places. My
story is not closely concerned with the charming hours I passed
there—hours of the kind that make intense memories. If I roamed
away half of them on the shoulders of the hills, I lay on the sloping
grass for the other half and, with my cap pulled over my eyes (save
a peep for immensities of view), listened, in the bright stillness, to
the mountain bee and felt most things sink and dwindle. Clare
Vawdrey grew small, Blanche Adney grew dim, Lord Mellifont grew
old, and before the day was over I forgot that I had ever been
puzzled. When in the late afternoon I made my way down to the inn
there was nothing I wanted so much to find out as whether dinner
would not soon be ready. To-night I dressed, in a manner, and by
the time I was presentable they were all at table.
In their company again my little problem came back to me, so that I
was curious to see if Vawdrey wouldn't look at me the least bit
queerly. But he didn't look at me at all; which gave me a chance
both to be patient and to wonder why I should hesitate to ask him
my question across the table. I did hesitate, and with the
consciousness of doing so came back a little of the agitation I had
left behind me, or below me, during the day. I wasn't ashamed of
my scruple, however: it was only a fine discretion. What I vaguely
felt was that a public inquiry wouldn't have been fair. Lord Mellifont
was there, of course, to mitigate with his perfect manner all
consequences; but I think it was present to me that with these
particular elements his lordship would not be at home. The moment
we got up, therefore, I approached Mrs. Adney, asking her whether,
as the evening was lovely, she wouldn't take a turn with me outside.
"You've walked a hundred miles; had you not better be quiet?" she
replied.
"I'd walk a hundred miles more to get you to tell me something."
She looked at me an instant, with a little of the queerness that I had
sought, but had not found, in Clare Vawdrey's eyes. "Do you mean
what became of Lord Mellifont?"
"Of Lord Mellifont?" With my new speculation I had lost that thread.
"Where's your memory, foolish man? We talked of it last evening."
"Ah, yes!" I cried, recalling; "we shall have lots to discuss." I drew
her out to the terrace, and before we had gone three steps I said to
her: "Who was with you here last night?"
"Last night?" she repeated, as wide of the mark as I had been.
"At ten o'clock—just after our company broke up. You came out here
with a gentleman; you talked about the stars."
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