res--well, I will not say
complete--but with all the dates accurate, I assure you. I have a head
for that sort of thing."

"Yes," I cried, desiring to turn the conversation. "Don't tell Mrs.
Mainwaring anything you wish forgotten. Facts are her passion. She
writes wonderful articles full of figures that make your head spin, and
publishes them in the popular magazines over the signature of Willoughby
the statistician. Allow me to present to you a statistical ghost."

But Pasquale's subtle Italian brain was paying but half attention to me.
I could read his inferences from Judith's observations, and I could
tell what she wanted him to infer. I seem to have worn my sensory system
outside instead of inside my skin this evening.

"Ordeyne," said he, "you are a pig, and the great-grandfather of pigs--"

"Foul" cried Carlotta, seizing on an intelligible point of the
conversation.

"Why didn't you present me to Mrs. Mainwaring in 1894? I declare I have
thought myself allied to that man for twenty years in bonds of the most
intimate friendship, and he has never so much as mentioned you to me."

"Seer Marcous says that Pasquale is a bad lot," remarked Carlotta, with
an air of sapience, after a sip of orangeade, a revolting beverage which
she loves to drink at her meals.

Pasquale threw back his handsome head and laughed again like the
chartered libertine he is, and Judith smiled.

"'Out of the mouths of babes, etc.,'" said I, apologetically.

"In all seriousness," said Pasquale to Judith, "I had no idea that any
one was such a close friend of Ordeyne's."

Judith turned to me, with a graceful gesture of her shoulders.

"I think we have been close friends, Marcus?"

"Oh, ye-es," broke in Carlotta. "Mrs. Mainwaring has the picture of Seer
Marcous in her bedroom, and there is the picture of Mrs. Mainwaring in
our drawing-room. You have not seen it? But yes. You have not recognised
it, Pasquale? Mrs. Mainwaring is so pretty tonight. Much prettier than
the photograph. Yes, you are so pretty. I would like to put you on the
mantel-piece as an ornament instead of the picture."

"May I be allowed to endorse Carlotta's sentiment of appreciation?" I
said, with a view to covering her indiscretion, for I saw a flash of
conjecture in Pasquale's eyes and a sudden spot of real red in Judith's
cheeks. She had evidently desired to suggest an old claim on my regard,
but to have it based on such intimate details as the enshrining of my