| [1] | The Covent Gardens of Paris. |
VIII
The sun was shining brightly when he awoke, and all the little midinettes were in full song.
Wynne sat up in bed and ate a piece of his bread and drank a glass of water. Asked why he did so, he cheerfully replied,
“Moi, je suis ruiné.”
Whereupon the maidens laughed very heartily and said he was a droll.
Wynne had become quite used to the little audience across the way and scarcely took them into consideration. Women, as such, made little or no impression upon him. He liked them well enough, but never cared to better his knowledge or acquaintance with any with whom he had come into contact. Physically they made not the slightest appeal to him—his senses were inert toward the impulse of sex, and he was given to criticize contemptuously those of his companions who staked their emotions in the ways of passion.
“Do not imagine I suffer from moral convictions,” he would say; “but, according to my views, you attach an importance to these matters out of all relation to their value.”
The sentence had inflamed to a very high degree the student to whom it was addressed.
“Fool! Fish!” he had shouted, by way of argument; and again, “Fish! Fish!”