Sin, with a wary eye fixed upon the Master of Malice, made for that end of the monk-board nearer the exit. The while he further ventured: “It isn’t necessarily lowering to Your Highness to say that you have more to learn than I anent the siren act. You can’t bully a dame into doting on you. The present-day caveman style is 40 H. P.--_after_ you’ve got her. Before, a wise one coaxes her. And it isn’t enough to load her down with that stage jewelry of which you’re so prodigal, when you yourself don’t look to be, any more than you act to be, of her day and degeneration. Why not tog yourself up more in the likeness of this millionaire love-hound of hers? Summertime’s coming apace or I’m no weather prophet, so why not moth-ball the well-known Vandyke and those robes of the vintage of Sol-in-all-his-glory days?” A snarl of stabbed vanity greeted the daring suggestion. Its cogency was demonstrated, however, when, in a lunge after the purveyor of unsolicited counsel, the King tripped over his train. From the hall the minister primed his advices. “As for your technique, soft-pedal yourself. Don’t keep blaring like a brass band at a lady who has fainted with fear of your noise.” The slam of the door was the old impertinent’s period. Once more tormentor and tormented were alone. Slowly the Past-Master of Policy righted himself and his intent. Returning to the prostrate girl-shade, he thinkingly regarded her. Her side face lay lax upon the board, exquisite as an irradiated cameo in its twisted setting of hair. Closed were those eyes of the purples of the bourgainvillae. Not a breath lifted the luring lines of the back revealed by her _décolleté_. Could her spirit really have swooned beyond his reach? He shrugged away the thought. Too often and too vehemently had he himself longed for surcease from consciousness in the last ten thousand years or so. Too well he knew that she still could hear him. Through time which had no beginning and could not end, she as well as he must continue to think--and think--and think. Thinking of her now as he looked, he felt more than before attracted toward that new idea regarding her which had been inspired by the latest chapter of her earth history. The oldest Original was right. His ways with women were archaic as his clothes in the sight of this most modern of Magdalenes. No repression of his ruthlessness or change in his “style” would be too great a price to pay for success in that experiment. When he spoke it was in mild tones. “Forgive my stupidity. ‘It ain’t inherited--it’s a gift.’ All right, fairest fiend. We’ll call it a séance to-night. Or better, suppose I give you a lift over the scene which has overwhelmed you with self-consciousness. At that, it may affect me worse to tell it myself. They say the narrator gets more out of his story than his hearers. He first must feel to arouse feeling. A good bad idea. So then, _I’ll_ tell _you_.”