She paused, as if to contemplate a fresh idea. Then: “I shall need concentration to satisfy Your Lowness’ hopes of me and concentration will come easier with not the humblest of my ex-suitors to distract. General Cummings was a deserter on Earth and, as you yourself said, once a deserter always. Him, as well as John Cabot, you may treat with fuller effect after The Day. Why not send the old nuisance along? And there is one other of whom I should like to be rid.” “Who, pray, may this other be?” “My babe.” Satan showed himself assailable by surprise. “Not the Littlest Devil? Now you have spoiled your argument. I can’t believe----” “You will when I explain. Ineffectual looking as is my child, she interferes with my whole-heartedness for evil. She rouses soft feelings in me--impulses to protect the weak and helpless. I’ll find it hard to live down even the thought of her. To see her daily is a detriment. Focus that imagination of yours, Pluto. Try to realize what you often must have heard, that mother-love is the most enduring influence in the universe.” “That’s one thing I’ve never been--a mother. Wish I had. I’d have given birth to some rare wastrels.” He grinned at the thought. “Don’t you see my argument? You will grant the favor I ask? I dislike to plead as much as you, but I make this a plea. Give me a chance in the one sincerity of my life.” “Your one sincerity?” He bent low to catch her murmured reproach. “That _you_ should need to ask! I, too, feel that I have my one chance in you. If you are not strong enough to compel me----” “One question.” His fingers snapped like a bracelet around her wrist. “Why have you been at such pains to arouse my jealousy of this weakling whom now you seem to despise?” Deliciously she smiled. “Ah, you humorists who cannot see the joke on yourselves! Once you said that I was humorous only in that I had no humor. Since, you have taught me. Tell me, is not jealousy the rough stone that whets an edge of love on attraction?” “I’d sort of hate to part with the Littlest Devil,” His Highness tentated. “It has seemed almost like having a child of one’s own in the palace. If she were a boy, I don’t believe I could. Strange, that hankering in the heart of the worst of men and devils to reproduce himself in a son!” He glanced up at his coat-of-arms, then back at her. The peculiar intensity of his look was unendurable. Her lids drooped over the consternation which she feared would show in her eyes. But she pressed her advantage. “I’d like the babe to go along, for her sake as well as my own. Her crime was her parents’. You wouldn’t fancy that third-to-fourth generation rule if you’d ever had a child. Come, dear Devil, acknowledge that my reasons are good. Let me have my way this once. Afterward you may have----” “Exactly what?” She lifted her face, pale as a night flower, to the strong light of his gaze.