a country vicarage where good ladies sit round a
table and talk of babies and rheumatism. Kind,--but so dull! Come--you
must take it in turns--you, Marchese, first, while Gaspard steers--and
Gaspard next--just as you did last night at what we called dinner,
before you fell asleep! Men DO fall asleep after dinner you know!--it's
quite ordinary. Married men especially!--I think they do it to avoid
conversation with their wives!"

She laughed, and her eyes flashed mirthfully as Rivardi seated himself
opposite to her at table.

"Well, _I_ am not married"--he said, rather petulantly--"Nor is
Gaspard. But some day we may fall into temptation and NOT be delivered
from evil."

"Ah yes!" and Morgana shook her fair head at him with mock
dolefulness--"And that will be very sad! Though nowadays it will not
bind you to a fettered existence. Marriage has ceased to be a
sacrament,--you can leave your wives as soon as you get tired of
them,--or--they can leave YOU!"

Rivardi looked at her with reproach in his handsome face and dark eyes.

"You read the modern Press"--he said--"A pity you do!"

"Yes--it's a pity anyone reads it!"--she answered--"But what are we to
read? If low-minded and illiterate scavengers are employed to write for
the newspapers instead of well-educated men, we must put up with the
mud the scavengers collect. We know well enough that every journal is
more or less a calendar of lies,--all the same we cannot blind
ourselves to the great change that has come over manners and
morals--particularly in relation to marriage. Of course the Press
always chronicles the worst items bearing on the subject--"

"The Press is chiefly to blame for it"--declared Rivardi.

"Oh, I think not!" and Morgana smiled as she poured out a second cup of
coffee--"The Press cannot create a new universe. No--I think human
nature alone is to blame--if blame there be. Human nature is tired."

"Tired?" echoed Rivardi--"In what way?"

"In every way!"--and a lovely light of tenderest pity filled her eyes
as she spoke--"Tired of the same old round of working, mating, breeding
and dying--for no results really worth having! Civilisation after
civilisation has arisen--always with strife and difficulty, only to
pass away, leaving, in many cases, scarce a memory. Human nature begins
to weary of the continuous 'grind'--it demands the 'why' of its
ceaseless labour. Latterly, poor striving men and women have been
deprived of faith--they used to beli