"What a cheerful Ananias you are!"
"Thou art the most enchanting creature in all the universe. Thou art
even as a turquoise, a patch of radiant summer sky, eyes of sapphire,
lips--"
"Archaic, very archaic," she interrupted.
"Disillusioned in ten seconds!" I cried dismally. "How could you?"
She laughed.
"Have you no romance? Can you not see the fitness of things? If you
have not a box at the opera, you ought at least to make believe you
have. History walks about us, and you call the old style archaic!
That hurts!"
"Methinks, Sir Monk--"
"There! That's more like it. By my halidom, that's the style!"
"Odds bodkins, you don't tell me!" There was a second ripple of
laughter from behind the mask. It was rare music.
"I _could_ fall in love with you!"
"There once was a Frenchman who said that as nothing is impossible, let
us believe in the absurd. I might be old enough to be your
grandmother,"--lightly.
"Perish the thought!"
"Perish it, indeed!"
"The mask is the thing!" I cried enthusiastically. "You can make love
to another man's wife--"
"Or to your own, and nobody is the wiser,"--cynically.
"We are getting on."
"Yes, we are getting on, both in years and in folly. What are you
doing in a monk's robe? Where is your motley, gay fool?"
"I have laid it aside for the night.
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