I said, "Charming."
"You're an evil person."
"Did I pick out the cashier—or did you?"
She considered anger—and settled for laughter. "At least, you have one virtue. A person around you doesn't have to censor what he says."
"And the devil is shocked by virtue, too—is that right? How perfectly the closed mind bats them back! It must be marvelous never to be able to wonder what goes on outside your own head. The enviable situation of nearly everybody! And the everlasting chute-the-chutes to hell-on-earth. Here comes our next course, Miss Morals."
"Can I have pêches flambeau?" she asked, somewhat later.
"I'll join you."
"I thought you didn't drink?"
"I don't. A brandied bonbon? Peaches with the alcohol mostly burned away? Sherry in the soup? I'm not absolutist, Yvonne—not stuck with it, quite. I don't accidentally swallow the port in my fruit cocktail and then go out and get roaring drunk—excusing myself with the accident of the port. Maybe the sniff of alcohol will fold up the resolution of some reformed drunkards. My own problem—in that case—was different."
"What was it, then?"