are so thoughtless, and who
easily become the prey of such dreadful people and such dreadful habits.

Now it is to be borne in mind that Mrs. Dearman's Good Time was marred
to some extent by her unreasoning dislike of all Indians, a dislike
which grew into a loathing hatred, born and bred of her ignorance of the
language, customs, beliefs and ideals of the people among whom she
lived, and from whom her husband's great wealth sprang.

To Augustus--fresh from very gilded gold, painted lilies and highly
perfumed violets--she seemed a vision of delight, a blessed damozel, a
living Salvation.

_"Incedit dea aperta,"_ he murmured to himself, and wondered whether he
had got the quotation right. Being a weak young gentleman, he
straightway yearned to lead a Beautiful Life so as to be worthy to live
in the same world with her, and did it--for a little while. He became a
teetotaller, he went to bed at ten and rose at five--going forth into
the innocent pure morning and hugging his new Goodness to his soul as he
composed odes and sonnets to Mrs. Pat Dearman. So far so excellent--but
in Augustus was no depth of earth, and speedily he withered away. And
his reformation was a house built upon sand, for, even at its pinnacle,
it was compatible with the practising of sweet and pure expressions
before the glass, the giving of much time to the discovery of the really
most successful location of the parting in his long hair, the
intentional entangling of his fingers with those of the plump and pretty
young lady (very brunette) in Rightaway & Mademore's, what time she
handed him "ties to match his eyes," as he requested.

It was really only a change of pose. The attitude now was: "I, young as
you behold me, am old and weary of sin. I have Passed through the Fires.
Give me beauty and give me peace. I have done with the World and its
Dead Sea Fruit. There is no God but Beauty, and Woman is its Prophet."
And he improved in appearance, grew thinner, shook off a veritable Old
Man of the Sea in the shape of a persistent pimple which went ill with
the Higher Aestheticism, and achieved great things in delicate socks,
sweet shirts, dream ties, a thumb ring and really pretty shoes.

In the presence of Mrs. Pat Dearman he looked sad, smouldering,
despairing and Fighting-against-his-Lower-Self, when not looking
Young-but-Hopelessly-Depraved-though-Yearning-for-Better-Things. And he
flung out quick epigrams, sighed heavily, talked brilliantly and