“Monsieur Janicot,” replied Florian, “you set the noble example of confessing when one is beaten. I was very careful when we made the compact which secured me this flawlessly beautiful lady as my wife. I am no longer careful. I cannot live with her for another year, not for a month, not for a half-hour! As you perceive, at the bare thought I grow hysterical. I tell you I cannot face the thought that this is the woman whom I have worshipped so long! I am a broken man, and I repent of every crime I committed in order to get her. Therefore let us make a second compact, my dear Monsieur Janicot, a compact by which she will be taken away from me! And you may name your own terms.” “Ah, but you are all alike!” sighed Janicot. “You palter and haggle about the securing of your desires: but once you have your desires, no price appears too high to rid you of them. I cannot understand my people, and my failure quite to comprehend them troubles me: yet I could have told you, Florian, the first day we met, that it would come to this. But you were that droll creature the romantic, the man who cherishes superhuman ideals. And I really cannot put up with ideals—” Janicot ceased from talking half as if in meditation. He now glanced from one to another of the company with a sort of friendly petulance. “However, why is everybody looking so solemn? I like to have happy faces about me.” “It is well enough for you to philosophize and grin,” Michael returned, in lordly indignation. “But grinning settles few religious difficulties, and philosophy muddles them worse than ever. Yet, if you ask why I look solemn, it is because this saint here has become a scandal on earth, a nuisance in heaven, and an impossibility in hell. And after all our conferences we can find no place for him anywhere to-day.” “Yet the affair is really very simple,” replied Janicot. “Let Hoprig and Melior, and their child too, return to Brunbelois and to the old time before he was a saint. Let them return to the high place and to the old time that is overpast now everywhere except at Brunbelois. Thus earth will be rid of your scandal-breeding saint, and Hoprig of his halo and Florian of his threatened hysteria. And this Melior and this Hoprig will no longer be real persons, but will once more blend into an ancient legend of exceeding beauty and holiness. And nobody anywhere will be dissatisfied. This I suggest because I like to have happy faces about me, and happy faces everywhere, even in heaven.” [Illustration: Caption surrounded by garland: “—And this is the last cloud going west.” _See page 291_ The image] Michael said: “You are subtle. That is not our strong point, of course. Still, I really do wonder why, after so many conferences, we never thought of such an obvious solution as to antedate him at Brunbelois.” And Michael looked at Hoprig.