I received this as a hint for my future attitude and answered militantly: “We shall quarrel certainly, for you have done dreadful things to poor Tristan!” I advanced and held out my hand. “What is that for?” said Dianne, staring at it. “Don’t you shake hands any more?” I replied perplexed in turn. “What a funny custom. Let me try it,” said Dianne, glancing at Acquilla. “Gracious, how strong and vibrant your hand is! Why do you suppose people ever greeted each other like that? And your face is all covered with hair, like a wild animal.” I was explaining my predicament when Dulcina and Carrilla entered, the last a statuesque blonde with a wig of flaming purple hair. When Dulcina approached and kissed me on the cheek in the accepted modern style, I purposely returned it with more warmth than I had shown. Acquilla, to my delight, immediately began to consider the famous aesthete with marked aversion, and to further aggravate her suspicions, I confess that during the evening, I pretended to be greatly attracted. Again, I must refer to a curious phenomenon. With Dianne I felt always the traditional male superiority; but with Acquilla, despite every effort, I felt myself constantly resorting to those devious ways of concealment that left me with a bewildered sense of a transmuted sex. Our dinner, needless to say, was of the same high order of gastronomic delicacy as my first. The four Amazons were of faultless beauty, slender and regal in their graceful limbs and tinted headdresses, so that my imagination mellowed by the exquisite vintages, pictured myself in the court of some mythological divinity surrounded by her nymphs. Yet the fascination that Dianne had imposed on my senses from the first view, was imperative and exclusive of all other desires. Dinner over, the conversation naturally developed into a series of cross-examinations on the habits and manners of the twentieth century, which I sustained with spirit. Dulcina was particularly interested in the aesthetic life of my sex. “Is it true, Bogardus,” she said, “at a time when certainly women must have discarded the absurdities of hoop-skirts, corsets and powdered headdresses that you men continued to dress in the livery of your butlers?” “Dulcina, I shall not attempt to defend myself. On this point I admit you score heavily. Nothing could have been more absurd than the clothes to which we were subjected. In fact, in an age when societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals flourished, no one ever thought of a society for the prevention of cruelty to men.” “I have seen curious drawings of the times,” said Dulcina, “but I confess I cannot comprehend them. Explain please, Bogardus, the strange way you dressed.”