suppose, have grazes on our knees. Get
your mother to put you into stockings, and nobody will see it. I've been
in stockings for years." I burst into a laugh.

He did not understand what I would be at; that, perhaps, was hardly
wonderful.

"The music has affected me," he mumbled.

"Then come and let some champagne affect you," I advised him irritably.
"What, are you to spoil a pleasant evening?"

He looked at me with ponderous sorrowful reproach.

"A pleasant evening!" he groaned, as he blew his nose.

"Yes," I cried loudly. "A damnably pleasant evening, M. Struboff," and I
caught him by the arm, dragged him from his stool, and carried him off
to the table with me. Here I set him down between Varvilliers and
myself; Wetter and Coralie, deep in low-voiced conversation, paid no
heed to him. He began to eat and drink eagerly and with appetite.

"You perceive, Struboff," said I persuasively, "that while we have
stomachs--and none, my friend, can deny that you have one--the world is
not empty of delight. You and I may have our grazes--Varvilliers, have
you a graze on the knee by chance?--but consider, I pray you, the case
of the man who has no dinner."

"It would be very bad to have no dinner," said Struboff, in full-mouthed
meditation.

"Besides that," said I lightly--I grew better tempered every
moment--"what are these fine-spun miseries with which we afflict
ourselves? To be empty, to be thirsty, to be cold--these are evils. Was
ever any man, well-fed, well-drunk, and well-warmed, really miserable?
Reflect before you answer, Struboff."

He drained a glass of champagne, and, I suppose, reflected.

"If he had his piano also----" he began.

"Great Heavens!" I interrupted with a laugh.

Coralie turned from Wetter and fixed her eyes on her husband. He
perceived her glance directly; his appetite appeared to become
enfeebled, and he drank his wine with apologetic slowness. She went on
looking at him with a merciless amusement; his whole manner became
expressive of a wish to be elsewhere. I saw Varvilliers smothering a
smile; he sacrificed much to good manners. I myself laughed gently.
Suddenly, to my surprise, Wetter caught Coralie by the wrist.

"You see that man?" he asked, smiling and fixing his eyes on her.

"Oh, yes, I see my husband," said she.

"Your husband, yes. Shall I tell you something? You remember what I've
been saying to you?"

"Very well; you've repeated it often. Are you going to repeat it