of a
good and beautiful woman--the poor little weather-cock. He was
essentially weak, and weakness is worse than wickedness. There is hope
for the strong bad man. He may become a strong good one. Your weak man
can never be that.

There came a lady to the Great Eastern Hotel where Augustus lived. Her
husband's name, curiously enough, was Harris, and wags referred to him
as _the_ Mr. Harris, because he had never been seen--and like Betsey
Prig, they "didn't believe there was no sich person". And beyond doubt
she was a spanker.

Augustus would sit and eye her at meals--and his face would grow a
little less attractive. He would think of her while he took tea with
Mrs. and Mr. Dearman, assuring himself that she was certainly a stepper,
a stunner, and, very probably,--thrilling thought--a wrong 'un.

Without the very slightest difficulty he obtained an introduction and,
shortly afterwards, decided that he was a man of the world, a Decadent,
a wise Hedonist who took the sweets of every day and hoped for more
to-morrow.

Who but a fool or a silly greenhorn lets slip the chances of enjoyment,
and loses opportunities of experiences? There was nothing in the world,
they said, to compare with War and Love. Those who wanted it were
welcome to the fighting part, he would be content with the loving role.
He would be a Dog and go on breaking hearts and collecting trophies.
What a milk-and-water young ass he had been, hanging about round good,
silly, little Mrs. Dearman, denying himself champagne at dinner-parties,
earning opprobrium as a teetotaller, going to bed early like a
bread-and-butter flapper, and generally losing all the joys of Life!
Been behaving like a _backfisch_. He read his Swinburne again, and
unearthed from the bottom of a trunk some books that dealt with the
decadent's joys,--poets of the Flesh, and prosers of the Devil, in his
many weary forms.

Also he redoubled his protestations (of undying, hopeless, respectful
devotion and regard) to Mrs. Dearman, until she, being a woman,
therefore suspected something and became uneasy.

One afternoon he failed to put in an appearance at tea-time, though
expected. He wrote that he had had a headache. Perhaps it was true, but,
if so, it had been borne in the boudoir of the fair spanker whose
husband may or may not have been named Harris.

As his absences from the society of Mrs. Dearman increased in frequency,
his protestations of undying gratitude and regard for her in