only a girl, and 'twas natural that at first I should be mistaken in my
fancies."

The Vicar had caught her by each wrist. "You don't understand, of course.
You never understood, for you have no more heart than one of those
pink-and-white bisque figures that you resemble. You don't love me, and
therefore I will go to the devil' may not be an all-rational deduction, but
'tis very human logic. You don't understand that, do you, Anastasia? You
don't understand how when one is acutely miserable one remembers that at
the bottom of a wineglass--or even at the bottom of a tumbler of gin,--one
may come upon happiness, or at least upon acquiescence to whatever the
niggling gods may send. You don't understand how one remembers, when the
desired woman is lost, that there are other women whose lips are equally
red and whose hearts are tenderer and--yes, whose virtue is less exigent.
No; women never understand these things: and in any event, you would not
understand, because you are only an adorable pink-and-white fool."

"Oh, oh!" she cried, struggling, "How dare you? You insult me, you coward!"

"Well, you can always comfort yourself with the reflection that it scarcely
matters what a sot like me may elect to say. And, since you understand me
now no more than formerly, Anastasia, I tell you that the lover turned
adrift may well profit by the example of his predecessors. Other lovers
have been left forsaken, both in trousers and in ripped petticoats; and
I have heard that when Chryseis was reft away from Agamemnon, the _cnax
andron_ made himself tolerably comfortable with Briseis; and that, when
Theseus sneaked off in the night, Ariadne, after having wept for a
decent period, managed in the ultimate to console herself with Theban
Bacchus,--which I suppose to be a courteous method of stating that the
daughter of Minos took to drink. So the forsaken lover has his choice of