In Deacon's Orders Author:Walter Besant Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE EQUAL WOMAN " You were saying ? " The long man in the low chair stretched out his legs and threw his head back. "When you ceased to listen," replied th... more »e other man coldly, " we were speaking of the Decay of Woman." " Ah, yes! the Decay of Woman. Man, I believe is also in Decay." "It is an Age of Decadence. Every thing—every thing —is in Decay." The place was a club smoking-room ; the time, evening. The man in the chair was the well-known Archie Carew, one of those men who seem to know every thing, and to try every thing, and who come out of every thing when they have found out the trick of it. He is now reported to work miracles by means of the Hypnotic Mystery, and is said by some—but perhaps this is a false report—to be one of the inner ring in Esoteric Buddhism. He lay in the chair contemplating his companion with eyes of Curiosity and amusement, perhaps contempt. The man who talked was a little man, small of head and of limb, with sloping shoulders and a narrow chest; his features pinched, or, as he would have put it, fine ; his face smooth ; his hair long and parted at the side so as to take advantage of a premature .thinning which lent an apparent nobility to the brow; he wore a brown velvet coat and a crimson scarf. Of course he had a pince-nez. This was Mr. Raymond Ridge —he preferred the name without the prefix or title. Hehad quite recently been presented to London by one of the two universities, which every year send up one or two young gentlemen who are going to set the world right at last in matters of art and literature. Formerly they were men of Geist, then of Light and Leading, then of Culture. Now they are men of the Higher Criticism. Whether they write or whether they talk, it is always on the assumption of a quite superior taste possessed by th...« less