nd in postures. If I
were anything, I would be a Roman Catholic."

"Should you like to confess all your sins?" asked Lady Locke, in some
surprise.

"Immensely. There is nothing so interesting as telling a good man or
woman how bad one has been. It is intellectually fascinating. One of the
greatest pleasures of having been what is called wicked is, that one has
so much to say to the good. Good people love hearing about sin. Haven't
you noticed that although the sinner takes no sort of interest in the
saint, the saint has always an uneasy curiosity about the doings of the
sinner? It is a case of the County Council and Zaeo's back over and over
again."

"Yes, we love examining each other's backs," said Madame Valtesi.

Esme Amarinth sighed musically and very loudly, and remarked--

"Faith is the most plural thing I know. We are all supposed to believe
in the same thing in different ways. It is like eating out of the same
dish with different coloured spoons. And we beat each other with the
spoons, like children."

"And the dish gives us indigestion," said Madame Valtesi. "I once spent
a week with an aunt who had taken to Litany, as other people take to
dram-drinking, you know. We went to Litany every day, and I never had so
much dyspepsia before in my life. Litany, taken often, is more
indigestible than lobster at midnight."

"How exquisite the moon is!" said Lady Locke, rising and going towards
the window.

"The moon is the religion of the night," said Esme. "Go out into the
garden all of you, and I will sing to you a song of the moon. It is very
beautiful. I shall give it to Jean de Reszke, I think. My voice will
sound better from a distance. Good voices always do."

He sat down at the piano, and they strolled out through the French
windows into the green and silent pleasaunce.

His voice was clear and open, and he spoke rather than sang the
following verses, while they stood listening till the rippling
accompaniment trickled away into silence:--

Oh! beautiful moon with the ghostly face,
Oh! moon with the brows of snow,
Rise up, rise up from your slumbering place,
And draw from your eyes the veil,
Lest my wayward heart should fail
In the homage it fain would bestow--
Oh! beautiful moon with the ghostly face,
Oh! moon with the brows of snow.

Oh! beautiful mouth like a scarlet flow'r,
Oh! mouth with the wild, soft breath,
Kiss close, kiss close in th