"Nothing like a good dinner if one has an appetite for it. I think it quite possible that Faust would have left his Margaret for a full meal!"
"I'm sure he would!" chimed in Mr. Swinton—"Any man would!"
Santoris looked down the table with a curious air of half-amused inspection. His eyes, clear and searching in their swift glance, took in the whole group of us—Mr. Harland enjoying succulent asparagus; Dr. Brayle drinking champagne; Mr. Swinton helping himself out of some dish of good things offered to him by one of the servants; Catherine playing in a sort of demure, old-maidish way with knife and fork as if she were eating against her will—and finally they rested on me, to whom the dinner was just a pretty pageant of luxury in which I scarcely took any part.
"Well, whatever Faust would or would not do," he said, half laughingly—"it's certain that food is never at a discount. Women frequently are."
"Women," said Mr. Harland, poising a stem of asparagus in the air, "are so constituted as to invariably make havoc either of themselves or of the men they profess to love. Wives neglect their husbands, and husbands naturally desert their wives. Devoted lovers quarrel and part over the merest trifles. The whole thing is a mistake."
"What whole thing?" asked Santoris, smiling.
"The relations between man and woman," Harland answered. "In my opinion we should conduct ourselves like the birds and animals, whose relationships are neither binding nor lasting, but are just sufficient to preserve the type. That's all that is really needed. What is called love is mere sentiment."
"Do you endorse that verdict, Miss Harland?" Santoris asked, suddenly.
Catherine looked up, startled—her yellow skin flushed a pale red.
"I don't know," she answered—"I scarcely heard—""