“Is it not a woman’s business to interrupt and cross a man?” queried Lotys, with a laugh,--“As I have told you before, Zouche, I will not have Sholto worried!” “Who worries him?” grumbled Zouche--“Not I!” “Yes, you!--you worry him on his most sensitive point--his daughter,” said Lotys;--“Why can you not leave the child alone? Sholto is an Englishman,” she explained, turning to Pasquin Leroy and his companions--“His history is a strange one enough. He is the rightful heir to a large estate in England, but he was born deformed. His father hated him, and preferred the second son, who was straight and handsome. So Sholto disappeared.” “Disappeared!” echoed Leroy--“You mean----” “I mean that he left his father’s house one morning, and never returned. The clothes he wore were found floating in the river near by, and it was concluded that he had been drowned while bathing. The second son, therefore, inherited the property; and poor Sholto was scarcely missed; certainly not mourned. Meanwhile he went away, and got on board a Spanish trading boat bound for Cadiz. At Cadiz he found work, and also something that sweetened work--love! He married a pretty Spanish girl who adored him, and--as often happens when lovers rejoice too much in their love--she died after a year’s happiness. Sholto is all alone in the world with the little child his Spanish wife left him, Pequita. She is only eleven years old, but her gift of dancing is marvellous, and she gets employment at one of the cheap theatres here. If an influential manager could see her performance, she might coin money.” “The influential manager would probably cheat her,” said Zouche,--“Things are best left alone. Sholto is content!” “Are you content?” asked Johan Zegota, helping himself from the bottle that stood near him. “I? Why, no! I should not be here if I were!” “Discontent, then, is your chief bond of union?” said Axel Regor, beginning to take part in the conversation. “It is the very knot that ties us all together!” said Zouche with enthusiasm.--“Discontent is the mother of progress! Adam was discontented with the garden of Eden,--and found a whole world outside its gates!” “He took Eve with him to keep up the sickness of dissatisfaction,” said Zegota; “There would certainly have been no progress without _her_!” “Pardon,--Cain was the true Progressivist and Reformer,” put in Graub; “Some fine sentiment of the garden of Eden was in his blood, which impelled him to offer up a vegetable sacrifice to the Deity, whereas Abel had already committed murder by slaying lambs. According to the legend, God preferred the ‘savour’ of the lambs, so perhaps,--who knows!--the idea that the savour of Abel might be equally agreeable to Divine senses induced Cain to kill him as a special ‘youngling.’ This was a Progressive act,--a step beyond mere lambs!”