—Swinburne.
“Let us deny Satan!”
—Sar Péladan.
I
Idly tapping the metal-topped table of the café with his stick, Oswald Invern waited for the Hollin boys. They had promised, the night before, to be punctual. It was past eleven and the pair had not turned up; he was bored, irritated. If they couldn’t remember their engagement, well and good; but why——!
“Oswald, have we kept you waiting?” intoned two pleasant tenor voices. There they were at last! Oswald made room for them on the divan and at once the twin brothers began smoking. Harry fetched a pipe from the bulging pocket of his coat and Willy lighted a cigarette. It was their pet affectation to pretend that they disliked any suggestion of twinship. Willy wore high heels and fashionably cut clothes so as to appear taller than his brother, while Harry sported Bohemian velvet and a broad-brimmed hat. But both agreed as to art and brotherly love. People endured them for these salient traits, though Oswald declared that it only made them the more stupid.
“No headache this morning, Oswald?”
“No heartache this morning, Oswald?”
The young man envied them as they pulled their fan-shaped beards and sipped their vermouth-citron. They were in key with the cosmos and he was not.
“Neither one nor the other,” he absently replied.