"It seems invidious to give special praise where everything is so good," said Mrs. Sinclair next day at lunch, "but I must say a word about that clear soup we had at dinner last night. I have never ceased to regret that my regard for manners forbade me ask for a second helping."

"See what it is to have no manners," said Van der Roet. "I plunged boldly for another portion of that admirable preparation of calf's head at dinner. If I hadn't, I should have regretted it for ever after. Now, I'm sure you are just as curious about the construction of these masterpieces as I am, Mrs. Sinclair, so we'll beg the Marchesa to let us into the secret."

"Mrs. Sinclair herself had a hand in the calf's-head dish, 'Testa di Vitello alla sorrentina,' so perhaps I may hand over that part of the question to her. I am very proud that one of my pupils should have won praise from such a distinguished expert as Mr. Van der Roet, and I leave her to expound the mystery of its charm. I think I may without presumption claim the clear soup as a triumph, and it is a discovery of my own. The same calf's head which Mrs. Sinclair has treated with such consummate skill, served also as the foundation for the stock of the clear soup. This stock certainly derived its distinction from the addition of the liquor in which the head was boiled. A good consomme can no doubt be made with stock-meat alone, but the best soup thus made will be inferior to that we had for dinner last night. Without the calf's head you will never get such softness, combined with full roundness on the tongue, and the great merit of calf's head is that it lets you attain this excellence without any sacrifice of transparency."

"I have marvelled often at the clearness of your soups, Marchesa," said the Colonel. "What clearing do you use to make them look like pale sherry?"

"No one has any claim to be called a cook who cannot make soup without artificial clearing," said the Marchesa. "Like the poet, the consomme is born, not made. It must be clear from the beginning, an achievement which needs care and trouble like every other artistic effort, but one nevertheless well within the reach of any student who means to succeed. To clear a soup by the ordinary medium of white of egg or minced beef is to destroy all flavour and individuality. If the stock be kept from boiling until it has been strained, it will develop into a perfectly clear soup under the hands of a careful and intelligent cook. The fleeting delicate aroma which, as every gourmet will admit, gives such grateful aid to the palate, is the breath of garden herbs and of herbs alone, and here I have a charge to bring against contemporary cookery. I mean the neglect of natural in favour of manufactured flavourings. With regard to herbs, this could not always have been the rule, for I never go into an old English garden without finding there a border with all the good old-fashioned pot herbs growing lustily. I do not say that the use of herbs is unknown, for of course the best cookery is impossible without them, but I fear that sage mixed with onion is about the only one which ever tickles the palate of the great English middle-class. And simultaneously with the use of herb flavouring in soup has arisen the practice of adding wine, which to me seems a very questionable one. If wine is put in soup at all, it must be used so sparingly as to render its presence imperceptible. Why then use it at all? In some sauces wine is necessary, but in all cases it is as difficult to regulate as garlic, and requires the utmost vigilance on the part of the cook."

"My last cook, who was very stout and a little middle-aged, would always use flavouring sauces from the grocer's rather than walk up to the garden, where we have a most seductive herb bed," said Mrs. Wilding; "and then, again, the love of the English for pungent-made sauces is another reason for this makeshift practice. 'Oh, a table-spoonful of somebody's sauce will do for the flavouring,' and in goes the sauce, and the flavouring is supposed to be complete. People who eat their chops, and steaks, and fish, and game, after having smothered the natural flavour with the same harsh condiment, may be satisfied with a cuisine of this sort, but to an unvitiated palate the result is nauseous."

"Yet as a Churchwoman, Mrs. Wilding, you ought to speak with respect of English sauces. I think I have heard how a libation of one of them, which was poured over a certain cathedral, has made it look as good as new," said Miss Macdonnell, "and we have lately learned that one of the most distinguished of our party is ambitious to enter the same career."

"I would suggest that Sir John should devote all that money he proposes to make by the aid of his familiar spirit—the ghost of Narcisse—to the building of a temple in honour of the tenth muse, the muse of cookery," said Mrs. Sinclair; "and what do you think, Sir John, of a name I dreamt of last night for your sauce, 'The New Century Sauce'? How will that do?"

"Admirably," said Sir John after a moment's pause; "admirably enough to allow me to offer you a royalty on every bottle sold. 'The New Century Sauce', that's the name for me; and now to set to work to build the factory, and to order plans for the temple of the tenth muse."