Ah! but Circe's cup deceives,
Evil spell its magic weaves,
To the fool who drinks--it leaves
The bitterness of sin.
One night Reginald and Beaumont were comfortably seated over their cigarettes and coffee in the smoking-room of the hotel, talking in a desultory kind of way about the news of the day, when Blake suddenly made a remark quite foreign to the conversation.
"I often wonder why you have never married, Beaumont," he said idly.
The artist shrugged his shoulders.
"It's not difficult to answer," he replied lightly. "I have never met any woman I particularly cared about."
"Wouldn't you like to be married?" asked Reginald.
"Humph! that depends. I'm afraid I'm past the age of cultivating the domestic virtues. I am a cosmopolitan--a wanderer--no home would be pleasant to me for any length of time."
"But why don't you settle down?"
"Because the age of miracles is past. I'm one of those men who never know in what land they will lay their bones. No, no! I'm sadly afraid the domestic tea-urn and family circle are not for me."