Soyecourt. And presently--oh, a good while before Christmas!--came
the news that Dorothy la Desiree had married rich Heitman Michael."

"But that is what I am called! And as you know, there is a Heitman
Michael who is always plaguing me. Is that not strange! for you tell
me all this happened a great while ago."

"Indeed, the story is very old, and old it was when Methuselah was
teething. There is no older and more common story anywhere. As the
sequel, it would be heroic to tell you this boy's life was ruined.
But I do not think it was. Instead, he had learned all of a sudden
that which at twenty-one is heady knowledge. That was the hour which
taught him sorrow and rage, and sneering, too, for a redemption. Oh,
it was armor that hour brought him, and a humor to use it, because
no woman now could hurt him very seriously. No, never any more!"

"Ah, the poor boy!" she said, divinely tender, and smiling as a
goddess smiles, not quite in mirth.

"Well, women, as he knew by experience now, were the pleasantest of
playfellows. So he began to play. Rampaging through the world he
went in the pride of his youth and in the armor of his hurt. And
songs he made for the pleasure of kings, and sword-play he made for
the pleasure of men, and a whispering he made for the pleasure of
women, in places where renown was, and where he trod boldly, giving
pleasure to everybody, in those fine days. But the whispering, and
all that followed the whispering, was his best game, and the game he
played for the longest while, with many brightly colored playmates
who took the game more seriously than he did. And their faith in the
game's importance, and in him and his high-sounding nonsense, he