Who but a fool or a silly greenhorn lets slip the chances of enjoyment, and loses opportunities of experiences? There was nothing in the world, they said, to compare with War and Love. Those who wanted it were welcome to the fighting part, he would be content with the loving rôle. He would be a Dog and go on breaking hearts and collecting trophies. What a milk-and-water young ass he had been, hanging about round good, silly, little Mrs. Dearman, denying himself champagne at dinner-parties, earning opprobrium as a teetotaller, going to bed early like a bread-and-butter flapper, and generally losing all the joys of Life! Been behaving like a _backfisch_. He read his Swinburne again, and unearthed from the bottom of a trunk some books that dealt with the decadent's joys,--poets of the Flesh, and prosers of the Devil, in his many weary forms. Also he redoubled his protestations (of undying, hopeless, respectful devotion and regard) to Mrs. Dearman, until she, being a woman, therefore suspected something and became uneasy. One afternoon he failed to put in an appearance at tea-time, though expected. He wrote that he had had a headache. Perhaps it was true, but, if so, it had been borne in the boudoir of the fair spanker whose husband may or may not have been named Harris. As his absences from the society of Mrs. Dearman increased in frequency, his protestations of undying gratitude and regard for her increased in fervour. Mrs. Dearman grew more uneasy and a little unhappy. Could she be losing her influence for Good over the poor weak boy? Could it be--horrible thought--that he was falling into the hands of some nasty woman who would flirt with him, let him smoke too many cigarettes, drink cocktails, and sit up late? Was he going to relapse and slip back into that state of wickedness of some kind, that she vaguely understood him to have been guilty of in the unhappy past when he had possessed no guardian angel to keep his life pure, happy and sweet, as he now declared it to be? "Where's your young friend got to lately?" inquired her husband one day. "I don't know, John," she replied, "he's always missing appointments nowadays," and there was a pathetic droop about the childish mouth. "Haven't quarrelled with him, or anything, have you, Pat?" "No, John dear. It would break his heart if I were unkind to him--or it would have used to. I mean it used to have would. Oh, you know what I mean. Once it would have. No, I have not been unkind to him--it's rather the other way about, I think!" _Rather the other way about_! The little affected pimp unkind to Mrs. Dearman! Mr. (or Colonel) Dearman made no remark--aloud. Augustus came to tea next day and his hostess made much of him. His host eyed him queerly. Very.