is the influence of the moon! Apparently we
are in Cyprus. How has my son enjoyed himself? How likes he the society
of Aspasia? I feel like a wise Greek to-night."

Adrian was jolly, and rolled comfortably as he talked. Ripton had been
carried off by the sentimental bosom. He came up to them and whispered:
"By Jove, Ricky! do you know what sort of women these are?"

Richard said he thought them a nice sort.

"Puritan!" exclaimed Adrian, slapping Ripton on the back. "Why didn't you
get tipsy, sir? Don't you ever intoxicate yourself except at lawful
marriages? Reveal to us what you have done with the portly dame?"

Ripton endured his bantering that he might hang about Richard, and watch
over him. He was jealous of his innocent Beauty's husband being in
proximity with such women. Murmuring couples passed them to and fro.

"By Jove, Ricky!" Ripton favoured his friend with another hard whisper,
"there's a woman smoking!"

"And why not, O Riptonus?" said Adrian. "Art unaware that woman
cosmopolitan is woman consummate? and dost grumble to pay the small price
for the splendid gem?"

"Well, I don't like women to smoke," said plain Ripton.

"Why mayn't they do what men do?" the hero cried impetuously. "I hate
that contemptible narrow-mindedness. It's that makes the ruin and horrors
I see. Why mayn't they do what men do? I like the women who are brave
enough not to be hypocrites. By heaven! if these women are bad, I like
them better than a set of hypocritical creatures who are all show, and
deceive you in the end."

"Bravo!" shouted Adrian. "There speaks the regenerator."

Ripton, as usual, was crushed by his leader. He had no argument. He still
thought women ought not to smoke; and he thought of one far away, lonely
by the sea, who was perfect without being cosmopolitan.

The Pilgrim's Scrip remarks that: "Young men take joy in nothing so much
as the thinking women Angels: and nothing sours men of experience more
than knowing that all are not quite so."

The Aphorist would have pardoned Ripton Thompson his first Random
extravagance, had he perceived the simple warm-hearted worship of
feminine goodness Richard's young bride had inspired in the breast of the
youth. It might possibly have taught him to put deeper trust in our
nature.

Ripton thought of her, and had a feeling of sadness. He wandered about
the grounds by himself, went through an open postern, and threw himself
down among some bushes on the slope of the