"So I gathered;" said his host, "from the fact that you were
nearly punctual. I ought to have told you that I'm a Food
Reformer. I've ordered two bowls of bread-and-milk and some
health biscuits. I hope you don't mind."
Clovis pretended afterwards that he didn't go white above the
collar-line for the fraction of a second.
"All the same," he said, "you ought not to joke about such things.
There really are such people. I've known people who've met them.
To think of all the adorable things there are to eat in the world,
and then to go through life munching sawdust and being proud of
it."
"They're like the Flagellants of the Middle Ages, who went about
mortifying themselves."
"They had some excuse," said Clovis. "They did it to save their
immortal souls, didn't they? You needn't tell me that a man who
doesn't love oysters and asparagus and good wines has got a soul,
or a stomach either. He's simply got the instinct for being
unhappy highly developed."
Clovis relapsed for a few golden moments into tender intimacies
with a succession of rapidly disappearing oysters.
"I think oysters are more beautiful than any religion," he resumed
presently.
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