Gaston said then: “The demon is consistent. For these two are precisely your body’s scientific specialty. To-day your body writes invaluable books in which the quaint and interesting customs that accompany an interplay of these two truths, and the various substitutes for that interplay, are catalogued and explained, as these customs have existed in all lands and times. Lichfield to-day is wholly proud of the scholarship and the growing fame of Gerald Musgrave.” “I am glad that my body has turned out so splendidly. And I trust that all goes equally well with your daughter Evelyn?” “Gerald,” the older man replied, looking more seriously troubled than Gerald ever liked to have anybody seeming in his company, “Gerald, it is an unfair thing that your Cousin Evelyn, without knowing it, should be living upon terms of such close friendship with a demon-haunted body.” “Ah, so that friendship continues!” “It continues,” said Gaston, “unaltered. It may interest you, Gerald, by the way, to hear that your Cousin Evelyn has now a son, quite a fine red-headed boy, born just a year after you relinquished your body to that treacherous Sylan.” Gerald answered affably: “Why, that is perfectly splendid! Frank always wanted a boy.” “My son-in-law, in fact, is much pleased. It is about my daughter I was thinking. It seems to me the situation is hardly fair to her, Gerald.” Gerald replied: “My body is all of me that she was ever acquainted with, Gaston. So I fail to perceive that anything is altered.” “Yet, when I reflect that a beautiful and accomplished and chaste gentlewoman, Gerald—” “Ah, ah! But, yes, to be sure! you speak in the time-hallowed terms of Lichfield. And I really do not know why I interrupted you.” “—When I reflect that, without knowing it, a gentlewoman is living upon terms of such close friendship with a mere demon-haunted body—” “And is, in fact, trusting and giving all?” “All her friendship and the natural affection of a kinswoman. Yes, that is a sad spectacle. It is an unsuitable spectacle. So it seems to me your duty as a Musgrave, and as a Southern gentleman, to return forthwith to mortal living and to your mortal obligations, and in particular to the obligations of your life-long friendship with your Cousin Evelyn.” Gerald said, for the second time, “Oh, bosh!”