"My dear!" exclaimed Cornelia. "At a ball, what can you expect?"
"Oh, I know I'm a fool for my pains," said Robert, laughing off the vexation he felt at having frittered away a whole evening.
He began to undo the girdle of his gown.
"Stop!" she cried. "I haven't had a really good look at your costume."
"Nor I at yours," he said, noticing how her dress lapped and caressed her form. He praised the effect freely.
Pleased, she went to his side, pulled his hood over his head, set his girdle and gown aright, and then stepped back to inspect the result, clapping her hands in approval as she did so.
"When the devil is sick of the world, the devil a monk would be!"
"The devil a monk am I!" said Robert, "unless an unholy rage at the world is a first-class qualification for monastic honors."
"Robert, the part fits you to perfection. It's astonishing how neatly you manage to blend the temper of a devil with the austerity of a monk."
"Not astonishing at all," said Robert, divesting himself of the costume. "Like most young men I have a craving for pleasure, excitement and female society. That's what you call the devil in me. But my observation is keen enough to show me that, under present social conditions, I can't give this craving either a temperate or an honorable satisfaction. So I repress it as much as common sense allows, and you call that repression austerity."