“My promise was merely this, Lady Surplice. At a recent dinner-party of Mrs. Amp’s, at which the guests of honour were Julius Cæsar, Shakespeare, Samuel Pepys, Balzac and myself, I was reckless enough to promise Mrs. Amp that I would ascend to earth one evening and spoil a dinner-party of yours. I will report to her, however, that a dinner-party so brilliant as yours would need the dulness of Jehovah himself to spoil it. Monseigneur, I give you farewell. Ladies, good-bye. Adieu, caballeros!”
“Stop, stop, stop!” cried Lady Surplice, frantically starting from her chair. “Just one moment, my dear Prince——”
“Well, just one,” sighed the archangel of sin, “for I promised Mrs. Amp to be back in time to hear Napoleon’s after-dinner speech on the intellectual obesity of soldiers, and successful soldiers in particular. What have you to say?”
“But am I to understand,” cried my lady indignantly, “that this monstrous woman is allowed to give all the parties she likes in Hell?”
“Naturally, madam. Else why should it be called Hell?”
“Then,” flashed my lady with a brilliant smile, “when I die, I shall also be able to give——”
“When you die, Lady Surplice, you will go to Heaven. For you are a good woman. You have a kind heart. You have cared for your husband and your children, and you have always given freely to the sick, the halt, the blind, the deaf and the dumb. In fact, Lady Surplice, I am very glad to have allowed myself this opportunity of congratulating you. You and your butler are perhaps the only two people in this room who will ascend to salvation. The odour of your sanctity already shames me, Lady Surplice. The saints in Paradise shall find in you a matchless companion. Talbot, the bosom of Abraham awaits you. I hope you will like it. Your only crimes, Lady Surplice, have been those of snobbery and vulgarity; and as the Bible was written before the existence of modern England, France and America, the very possibility of snobbery and vulgarity was unthought of, and thus they escaped inclusion among the heinous sins——”
“But look here,” protested Guy de Travest, “what reason but cruelty can you have for altering Lady Surplice’s destiny? It appears to me a gross case of prejudice, since, after all, Mrs. Amp has been allowed to ascend to Hell——”
“Descend, Guy,” said the Lord Chancellor. “All authorities combine in agreeing that the movement, if any, is downwards.”
“Mrs. Amp,” said the Other wearily, “has a claim to my hospitality because she poisoned her husband. Now, upon my word, I really must go——”