We returned to the places which we had already occupied. Ariel cast another threatening look at me. She had just sense enough left, after emptying her goblet of wine, to be on the watch for a new interruption on my part. I took care, of course, that nothing of the sort should happen. I was now as eager as Ariel to hear the story. The subject was full of snares for the narrator. At any moment, in the excitement of speaking, Dexter’s memory of the true events might show itself reflected in the circumstances of the fiction. At any moment he might betray himself. He looked around him, and began. “My public, are you seated? My public, are you ready?” he asked, gayly. “Your face a little more this way,” he added, in his softest and tenderest tones, motioning to me to turn my full face toward him. “Surely I am not asking too much? You look at the meanest creature that crawls--look at Me. Let me find my inspiration in your eyes. Let me feed my hungry admiration on your form. Come, have one little pitying smile left for the man whose happiness you have wrecked. Thank you, Light of my Life, thank you!” He kissed his hand to me, and threw himself back luxuriously in his chair. “The story,” he resumed. “The story at last! In what form shall I cast it? In the dramatic form--the oldest way, the truest way, the shortest way of telling a story! Title first. A short title, a taking title: ‘Mistress and Maid.’ Scene, the land of romance--Italy. Time, the age of romance--the fifteenth century. Ha! look at Ariel. She knows no more about the fifteenth century than the cat in the kitchen, and yet she is interested already. Happy Ariel!” Ariel looked at me again, in the double intoxication of the wine and the triumph. “I know no more than the cat in the kitchen,” she repeated, with a broad grin of gratified vanity. “I am ‘happy Ariel!’ What are you?” Miserrimus Dexter laughed uproariously. “Didn’t I tell you?” he said. “Isn’t she fun?--Persons of the Drama.” he resumed: “three in number. Women only. Angelica, a noble lady; noble alike in spirit and in birth. Cunegonda, a beautiful devil in woman’s form. Damoride, her unfortunate maid. First scene: a dark vaulted chamber in a castle. Time, evening. The owls are hooting in the wood; the frogs are croaking in the marsh.--Look at Ariel! Her flesh creeps; she shudders audibly. Admirable Ariel!” My rival in the Master’s favor eyed me defiantly. “Admirable Ariel!” she repeated, in drowsy accents. Miserrimus Dexter paused to take up his goblet of Burgundy--placed close at hand on a little sliding table attached to his chair. I watched him narrowly as he sipped the wine. The flush was still mounting in his face; the light was still brightening in his eyes. He set down his glass again, with a jovial smack of his lips--and went on: