the lean and elderly bookworm
into the gay, young gallant about the town? Once one could scarcely drag
him from his cell to the quietest of dinners, and now--has he told you
of his dissipations this past month, Mrs. Mainwaring?"

Judith smiled. "Have you been Mephistopheles?"

"What is Mephistopheles?" asked Carlotta.

"The devil," said Pasquale, "who made Sir Marcus young again."

"Oh, that's me," cried Carlotta, clapping her hands. "He does not read
in big books any longer. Oh, I was so frightened when I first came." (I
must say she hid her terrors pretty effectually.) "He was so wise, and
always reading and writing, and I thought he was fifty. And now he
is not wise at all, and he said two, three days ago I had made him
twenty-five."

"If you go on at the rate you have begun, my dear," Judith remarked in
her most charming manner, "in another year you will have brought him
down to long clothes and a feeding-bottle."

Carlotta thought this very funny and laughed joyously. I laughed
too, out of courtesy, at Judith's bitter sarcasm, and turned the
conversation, but Pasquale was not to be baulked of his toast.

"Here's to our dear friend Faust; may he grow younger and younger every
day."

We clinked glasses. Judith sighed when the performance was concluded.

"That is one of the many advantages of being a man. If you do sell your
soul to the devil you can see that you get proper payment. A woman is
paid in promissory notes, which are dishonoured when they fall due."

I contested the proposition. The irony of this peculiarly painful revel
lay in the air of gaiety it seemed necessary to maintain. A miserable
business is civilisation!

"Did you ever hear of a woman getting youth out of such a bargain?" she
retorted with some vehemence.

"As women systematically underpay cabmen," said I, "so do they try to
underpay the devil; and he is one too many for them."

"I am afraid," said Pasquale, "that the old days of shrewd bargains are
over. There is a glut in the soul-market and they only fetch the price
of old bones."

"He is talking foolish things that I do not understand," said Carlotta,
putting her hand on my arm.

"It is called sham cynicism, my dear," said I, "and we all ought to be
ashamed of ourselves."

"What do you like best to talk about?" Judith asked sweetly.

"Myself. And so does everybody," replied Carlotta.

We laughed, and for a time talk ceased to be allusive. But later, over
our coffee, wh