“And whom,” he enquired, “have we here?”
The minister undertook to announce them. “A pair by the stagy names of Innocentia and Amor. They call themselves guardian spirits and have a talent, which few share with Your Excellency and myself, of absolute invisibility. They lined up in a most theatric way beside the wench Dolores outside the door. As they had no passports and did not seem to belong, I sent them back—or thought I did.”
Satan considered Sin and them. “Where is your sense of humor, Old Original, that you explain them to me? I can’t say that I should have regretted Amor. We have all varieties of him down the Lane of Labors. But Innocentia! You might have appreciated that I seldom get a chance to see her wings flutter or hear her heart beat from fear. Tell me, you two, what madness is driving you?”
“There has been some mistake about the girl Dolores,” Amor declared. “Earth has passed another false judgment. Shouldn’t I know who have been with her since first she met the father of her child?”
“You refer, I presume, to her husband?”
The love-lad’s head threw back in defiance at the jibe. But Innocentia flushed as she took up the defense.
“I have been with our dear Dolores always, more a part of her than the blood in her veins, since that has ceased to flow and I am come with her into Shadow Land. She has heeded all my cautions against the wiles of men. Never once has she offended me.”
“More sinned against than sinning, eh?” His Highness plucked an imaginary tear from one eye. “Often as a woman has been damned have I heard that plea.”
“Only see for yourself, Sire, how she shrinks from your touch—how she suffers. We pray you, release her.”
“Little pest, don’t you know that I enjoy defying you?”