h fancy for pulling your poodle head."

"Indeed!" she replied. "First give me a light for my cigarette, and
then I want the explanation you promised me yesterday: the reason why
you'll never marry. You remember, I had to go to rehearsal and you to a
consultation."

"And you've not already discovered the answer yourself? Oh! Adelina,
your love for me clouds your clear intellect!"

"You insolent, conceited fellow! But he's incorrigible," laughed the
girl, as she carelessly took off the heavy false braids and laid them
on the chair beside the wine-cooler. She really looked far prettier in
her short and now disordered curls.

"There, now you're yourself again," said Marquard looking at her
through his gold spectacles with unfeigned satisfaction. "And since
you've laid aside all deceit, I'll honestly acknowledge, that out of
pure sentimentality, I shall never marry; my tombstone will bear the
inscription: 'Here lies the virgin Marquard.'"

"You and sentimentality!"--she laughed merrily.

"To be sure, my fair friend. Judge for yourself: don't you think it
would be pastoral, that I should show sensitiveness if my wife were not
faithful to me? yet I myself should be just as devoted to polytheism
after marriage as before. I couldn't help it you see, but I'm too just
to expect that a good, virtuous creature would be satisfied with such a
small fraction of a husband."

"As if the right woman wouldn't be able to improve you and make you a
whole man and husband!"

"Improve me, my friend!" he sighed with a comical pathos in his look
and tone. "In case you should ever want a faithful husband, let me warn
you to beware of doctors in choosing one. We really ought to take a vow
of celibacy, like the Catholic priests. The man to whom you confess,
must be either a stone or a saint, to escape the contagion of your
sins. And yet I'd rather listen to the symptoms of an ailing heart,
than hear of a contusion on the knee. Why do you move away from me?"

"Because you're a very frivolous fellow and have had too much
champagne. Besides, it's late."

"Too late--to go. I left word at home that my servant needn't expect
me. As I fortunately have no wife, I'll for once be as comfortable as
other married men and sleep for one night without being disturbed by
domestic troubles or by other people's. Here I'm no doctor, here I'm a
man and may be permitted to act like one." He threw away his cigar and
tenderly approaching the young girl, took b