a _femme faite_. But I can't think
of her as a woman who has passed through marriage. One feels a
freshness, a bloom, a something untouched, intact. One feels the
presence of certain inexperiences. And yet--well, by the card, one's
feeling is mistaken."

Adrian sprinkled sugar and poured cream over a plateful of big red
strawberries.

"All this--and Heaven too," he piously murmured.

Then, rosy face and blue eyes bright with anticipation, he tasted one.
Slowly the brightness faded.

"Deceivers!" he cried, falling back in his seat, and shaking his fist
at the tall glass dish from which he had helped himself. "Fair as
Hyperion, false as dicers' oaths. Acid and watery--a mere sour bath.
You may have them all." He pushed the dish towards Anthony. "I
suppose it's too early in the season to hope for good ones. But
this"--he charged a plate with bread, butter, and marmalade--"this
honest, homely Scottish marmalade, this can always be depended upon to
fill the crannies." And therewith he broke into song.

"To fill the crannies,
The mannie's crannies,

Then hey for the sweeties of bonny Dundee!" he carolled lustily. "Let
me see--I was saying?" he resumed. "Ah, yes, I was saying that the
state of mind of a man like you is a thing I am utterly unable to
conceive. And that 's funny, because it is generally true that the
larger comprehends the less. But I look at you, and I think to myself,
thinks I, 'There is a man--or at least the semblance of a man,--a
breathing thing at least, with anthropoid features and dimensions,--who
is never, never, never tormented by the feeling--'Now, tell me, what
feeling do you conjecture I mean?"

"Don't know, I 'm sure," said Anthony, without much animation.

"'By the feeling that he ought to be bending over a sheet of paper,
ruled in pretty parallels of fives, trying to embellish the same with
semi-breves and crotchets.' That is what I think to myself, thinks I;
and the thought leaves me gasping. I am utterly unable to conceive
your state of mind."

"I shan't--barring happy accidents--see her again till Sunday; and
to-day is only Friday," Anthony was brooding.

"Apropos," he said to Adrian, "I remember your telling me that Friday
was unlucky."

"Tut," said Adrian. "That is n't apropos in the slightest degree. The
difference that baffles me, I expect, is that I 've the positive, you
've the negative, temperament; I 've the active, you 've the passive; I
've the f