out graveyards, I would still be just as I am
to-day, and you would be tied to me. Your friend probably knew what he
was about when he drank to our welfare, for we should never have suited
each other, as you can see for yourself. Well, Mother, many things fall
out queerly in this world, but with age we learn to accept what happens
without flustering too much over it. What are we to do with this
resurrected old lover of mine?"

It was horrible to Florian to see how prosaically these women dealt with
his unusual misadventure. Here was a miracle occurring virtually before
their eyes, and these women accepted it with maddening tranquillity as
an affair for which they were not responsible. Florian began to reflect
that elderly persons were always more or less unsympathetic and
inadequate.

"First of all," said Dame Melicent, "I would give him some breakfast.
He must be hungry after all these years. And you could put him in
Adhelmar's room--"

"But," Florian said wildly, to Dame Adelaide, "you have committed the
crime of bigamy, and you are, after all, my wife!"

She replied, herself not unworried:

"Yes, but, Mother, both the cook and the butler are somewhere in the
bushes yonder, up to some nonsense that I prefer to know nothing about.
You know how servants are, particularly on holidays. I could scramble
him some eggs, though, with a rasher. And Adhelmar's room it had better
be, I suppose, though I had meant to have it turned out. But as for
bigamy and being your wife," she concluded more cheerfully, "it seems to
me the least said the soonest mended. It is to nobody's interest to rake
up those foolish bygones, so far as I can see."

"Adelaide, you profane equally love, which is divine, and marriage,
which is a holy sacrament."

"Florian, do you really love Adelaide de Nointel?" asked this terrible
woman. "And now that I am free to listen to your proposals, do you wish
to marry me?"

"Well, no," said Florian; "for, as I have just said, you are no longer
the same person."

"Why, then, you see for yourself. So do you quit talking nonsense about
immortality and sacraments."

"But, still," cried Florian, "love is immortal. Yes, I repeat to you,
precisely as I told Tiburce, love is immortal."

Then said Dame Melicent, nodding her shriveled old head:

"When I was young, and served by nimbler senses and desires, and housed
in brightly colored flesh, there were many men who loved me. Minstrels
yet tell of the men tha