But if he was in prime condition after a cold dip and a rub, his lady friend was not. The dainty Dora of the bacchanale had given place to a girl with puffy eyelids, discoloured complexion, bloated cheeks, sagging mouth, bad breath and tarnished glance. She was suffering, and hardly took time to twist her abundant hair into shape. Withal, a charming creature, as she stood in the daylight before her glass. An expression of discontent, bred of late hours and dissipation was contradicted by her young eyes, which incessantly smiled. She couldn't have been more than eighteen and her figure was nubile in its firm flesh and flowing contours. Decidedly a treasure-trove for an erotic man. Ulick went to her and she met him half-way. They embraced so desperately that she cried: "You are such a dear, you are such a man!" And again they made the eternal gesture which mankind shares in common with his simian cousins at the Zoo or of the jungle. Youth must have its fling and the almighty has set his seal upon the multiplication of the species. And youth is better so employed than killing, or swindling, or guzzling, believed Ulick. Dora and Ulick were now thoroughly satisfied with one another and they made room in their consciousness for the play of a still more powerful instinct than reproduction. They were both hungry at the same time. Dora declared her headache vanished; Ulick, glad of the news, nevertheless wished she wouldn't address him with the inevitable "dearie." It sounded as naked as a cornet solo, this familiar appellation of the bordel. How unoriginal is man, how little he changes with the ages. In every tongue since the Babel scandal there is the equivalent of "dearie"; only, it is the property, this vocable, of the women of whom Dante wrote: "As the rill that runs from Bulicamé, to be portioned out among the sinful women...." Ulick felt relieved when breakfast was announced.