the terrible archness of a fat woman. "But, madame, you are no longer the
same person."

She patted him upon the shoulder. "Come, Florian, there is some sense in
you, after all. Console yourself, lad, with the reflection that if you
had stuck manfully by your wife instead of mooning about graveyards, I
would still be just as I am to-day, and you would be tied to me. Your
friend probably knew what he was about when he drank to our welfare, for
we would never have suited each other, as you can see for yourself. Well,
Mother, many things fall out queerly in this world, but with age we learn
to accept what happens without flustering too much over it. What are we
to do with this resurrected old lover of mine?"

It was horrible to Florian to see how prosaically these women dealt with
his unusual misadventure. Here was a miracle occurring virtually before
their eyes, and these women accepted it with maddening tranquillity as an
affair for which they were not responsible. Florian began to reflect that
elderly persons were always more or less unsympathetic and inadequate.

"First of all," says Dame Melicent, "I would give him some breakfast. He
must be hungry after all these years. And you could put him in
Adhelmar's room--"

"But," Florian said wildly, to Dame Adelaide, "you have committed the
crime of bigamy, and you are, after all, my wife!"

She replied, herself not untroubled: "Yes, but, Mother, both the cook and
the butler are somewhere in the bushes yonder, up to some nonsense that I
prefer to know nothing about. You know how servants are, particularly on
holidays. I could scramble him some eggs, though, with a rasher. And