"Don't deny it," said the Critic, as he rose and yawned. "So I am going to bed to sleep on my laurels while I may. Good night."
"Well," called the Sculptor after him, as he sauntered away, "as one of our mutual friends used to say 'The Indian Summer of Passion scorches.'"
"But, alas!" added the other, "it does not always kill."
"Witness—" began the Journalist, but the Critic cut him short.
"As you love me—not that famous list of yours including so many of the actresses we all know. I can't bear that to-night. After all the French have a better phrase for it—'La Crise de quarante ans.'"
The Nurse and Divorcée had been very quiet, but here they locked hands, and the former remarked that they prepared to withdraw:
"That is our cue to disappear—and you, too, Youngster. These men are far too wise."
So we of the discussed sex made a circle with our clasped hand about the Youngster and danced him into the house. The last I saw of the garden that night, as I looked out of my window toward the northeast, with "Namur" beating in my head, the five men had their heads still together, but whether "the other sex" was getting scientifically torn to bits, or they, too, had Namur in their minds I never knew.