Her hesitation was mastered by surprise. Even on closer view, she scarcely could believe that this superb copy of the men of Earth indeed was His Satanic Majesty. His hair, formerly pompadoured to conceal his horns, was clipped, parted on one side and slicked back, the indices of power evidently razored close. The auburn Vandyke which had been inseparable from her concept of him was the more noticeable now for its absence. In its place, a smile whose charm would have been hard to describe clothed the well-sculped lips.
The lines and color of His Highness’ costume adhered to what she knew was “latest” form—all except his tie. That was of a red which vividly reminded her of that Justice Roscoe Strang, whose independence of judicial precedent had been suggested by a like daring note in otherwise sombre dress.
“Ah, sweet Grief,” he saluted her. “I feel indebted to you for the basic idea of my sermon on ‘The Service of Suicide.’ You’ve caught me at a rehearsal. I was just reading my text, ‘To Hell with the Ill-Begot.’ We mustn’t overlook the propaganda out of the mouths of babes and sucklings in our new Drive of Destruction, eh?”
“Mustn’t we?” she evaded wretchedly.
“Come, cheer down! Did my mere mention of a sermon make you pull the doleful face of the average religionist in church? You haven’t said how you like my style to-night. Am I not beautiful and à la mode?”
He appeared to be in an unusually amiable mood. A turn or two he took around her, evidently to note the reflection on her face as well as in the mirror.
“Is it possible——” in sudden suspicion he peered at her—“that you don’t like me razored?”
“You look—very well.”
“I look—‘very well.’” He aped her effortful tone. “Didst note her burst of enthusiasm? In gratitude, she’s not so different from the rest of womankind. What one of them ever realized that a man would rather remove a mountain from the physiognomy of the earth than the beard from his face? As for the horns from his head!”
“But really, I do like it—very well indeed!”