Lewis laughed.
' Spoiled his market,' he remarked. ' That man's very clever, but he lacks—he lacks length of vision.'
' Perhaps he didn't know it was a forgery,' said Mrs. Palmer charitably.
' That's worse. Give him the credit of knowing.'
Mrs. Palmer put down the paper she was reading.
' Lewis, you didn't come here just to break my things,' she said. ' What is it?'
' Lord Keynes. What do you know of him?' he asked, with his usual directness.
Had Mrs. Palmer been in the company of other people, she would have executed her famous scream, because she was amused. But she never wasted it, and it would have been quite wasted on her husband.
' He's charming,' she said. ' He's in excellent style; he's in the set in London. And he wants a wife with a competency. That's why I brought him here.'
' But what does he do?' asked her husband. ' Does he just exist?'
' Yes, I guess he exists. Men do exist in England; here they don't. They get.'
' Some exist here. Ping-pong does.'
' And who's Ping-pong?' she asked.
' Why, Armstrong. Amelie thought of it. He is a ping-pong, you know.'
This time Mrs. Palmer gave the scream, for she was so much amused as to forget the absence of an audience.
' Well, I'm sure, if Amelie isn't bright,' she said. ' But you're pretty far out, Lewis, if you think that Lord Keynes is a ping-pong. If he was an American, and did nothing, he would be. But men do nothing in England without being.'
' England's a ping-pong, I think sometimes,' remarked Lewis. ' She just plays about. However, we're not dis-
