body questions her loyalty to her husband. You
would think by some of her poems that an East Indian regiment would not
suffice for her, and yet she is the straightest wife on Manhattan
Island. Oh, I know so many cases. You remember that girl who wrote,
'Love's Extremities,' a work as passionate as Sappho. She is a little
Quaker-like maiden,[A] who dresses and talks like a sister of one of the
Episcopal guilds. These women are on fire at the brain only. They would
repel a physical advance with more indignation than those endowed with
less esthetic perceptions. So, see Miss Fern as much as you like. Should
you attempt anything improper you will prove the truth of my
assertions."

[Footnote A: Now dead, alas!--A. R.]

Mr. Weil changed the knee he had been nursing, but the quiet smile did
not leave his countenance.

"What an inconsistent fellow you are, Lawrence," he said. "I could
convict you of a hundred errors of logic. Do you remember telling Mr.
Roseleaf that a man should have a passion before he attempts to depict
one."

"And I say so still," retorted Gouger. "_You_ don't call the ravings of
these poetesses and female novelists real life, do you? _You_ know the
actual lover isn't content with kissing the hair and the feet of his
divinity! There is more about women's _feet_ in these poems and novels
than all the rest of their anatomy put together. And what is a woman's
foot? Did you ever see one that was pretty--that you wanted to put to
your lips?"

"Yes," interrupted Archie, dreamily, "once. At Capri. She was fifteen.
Her feet were pink, like a shell. She was walking along the shore in the
early evening."

"With the dirt of the soil on them!" exclaimed Mr. Gouger, in disgust.

"No, she had just emerged from her bath. The sand there was clean as a
carpet, cleaner, in fact. Gods! They were exquisite!"

The critic uttered an exclamation.

"I waste time talking to you," he said, sharply. "You are like the rest
of the imaginative crowd. It is a pity you were not gifted with the
divine afflatus, that you could have added your volumes to the nonsense
they print."

"And which you are always glad to get," interpolated Mr. Weil.

"Because it will sell. Cutt & Slashem are in this business to make
money, and my thoughts must be directed to the saleable quality of the
manuscripts submitted. If _I_ was running the concern, though, I would
touch the mooney, maundering mess. It makes my flesh creep, sometimes,
to