Then they finished dressing, lowered the lights, and went down-stairs.
Mr. Nevins greeted them effusively. He was standing in the centre of a small group composed of Miss Freighley, Mr. Sellars, and Mr. Paul, and the patch above his left eye, as well as his general unsteadiness, bore evidence to his need of the moral suasion to which Mr. Paul was giving utterance. In a corner of the room the "Andromeda" was revealed naked to her friends as well as to her enemies, and at the moment of Anthony's and Mariana's entrance Mr. Ardly was engaged in crowning her with a majestic wreath of willow.
He looked up from his task to bestow a morose greeting.
"We have invited you to weep with us," he remarked. "The gentle pronoun 'us,' which you may have observed, is due, not to my sympathetic nature, but to the fact that I have lost a wager upon the rejected one to Mr. Paul—"
"Who is also among the prophets," broke in Mr. Nevins, with a declamatory wave of his hand. "For behold, he prophesied, and his prophecy it came to pass! For he spake, saying, 'The "Andromeda," she shall be barren of honor, and lo! in one hour shall she be made desolate, and her creator shall put dust upon his head and rend his clothes, yet shall it avail not—'"
"Shut up, Nevins!" roared Ardly, seating himself at the table beside Mariana. "As if everybody didn't know that Mr. Paul's prophecy was obliged to come to pass! Did you ever see a pessimist who wasn't infallible as a soothsayer? It beats a special revelation all hollow."
"Please don't be irreverent," remonstrated Mariana. "I am sure I am awfully sorry about the 'Andromeda,' and I believe that if Mr. Nevins had taken my advice and lightened those shadows—"
"Or mine, and lengthened that thigh," broke in Ardly.
"Or mine, and shortened the fingers," added Miss Freighley.
"Or mine, and never painted it," in a savage whisper from Algarcife.