The calm voice helped to restore Power's bemused senses. Afraid lest his moonstruck attitude might have been observed by some of Mrs. Marten's companions, he tried to cover his confusion by a jest. "Wine, did you say?" he cried. "Certainly--let's have a magnum. Bottled sunlight should help to dissipate visions." "Anacreon has something to that effect in one of his odes; though he vowed that he worshiped Wine, Woman, and the Muses in equal measure." "Who is Anacreon?" asked the man from Plainville. "He flourished at Athens about 600 B.C.," laughed Dacre. "Did he? By gosh! The Greeks knew a bit, then, even at that time." "This one in particular was an authority on those three topics. Love, to him, was no mischievous boy armed with silver darts, but a giant who struck with a smith's hammer. He died like a gentleman, too, being choked by a grapestone at the age of eighty-five." "Ah, that explains it!" "Explains what?" "He had a small swallow, or rum and romance would have knocked him out in half the time." Power was rapidly becoming himself again. "I behaved like a stupid boy just now," he said; "but I was never more taken aback in my life. I have not met Mrs. Marten since her marriage, three years ago, and I imagined she was in Europe." "Oh, is that Mrs. Marten?" chimed in downright Plainville. "Last Sunday's papers whooped her up as the prize beauty of Newport this summer, and I guess they got nearer the truth than usual. She's a sure winner." "Did I hear her mention Mrs. Van Ralten?" inquired Dacre. "Yes, her hostess tonight, I believe." "Van Ralten and Marten hurried off together to the Caspian last week. They are interested in the oil wells at Baku." Cymbals seemed to clash in Power's brain, and he heard his own voice saying in a subdued and colorless staccato, "I am sorry I did not meet her sooner. I leave tomorrow." Dacre looked at him curiously; but the wine had arrived, a choice vintage of the middle '70's, and the Mexican was lifting his glass. "_El sabio muda conseja; el necio no_," he quoted. The phrase was so apt that Power glanced at the speaker with marked doubt; whereupon the blond Norwegian asked what the señor had said. "He told us that the wise man changes his mind, but the fool does not," translated Power. "Gee whizz!" cried Plainville. "It's a pity he can't give out the text in good American; for he talks horse sense most all the time. If _I_ had a peach like Mrs. Marten callin' me 'Derry,' damn if I'd quit for a month!" The general laugh at this dry comment evoked a demand by the Mexican for a Spanish version of the joke. Then he made it clear that he had resolved to abjure wine, and was only salving his conscience by a proverb.