THE VOICE: All this, my dear, is quite beyond me. Will you answer a simple question? Suppose your husband--who you say was the only man you have ever loved and who, I am certain, has never loved any other woman but you--suppose this husband of yours came back to England and rang you up--to ask you to dine with him? SHELMERDENE: Just because, after all these years, he suddenly remembered her one night! Just because, after all these years, he suddenly saw a vision of her dancing--as he had last seen her, he who had suddenly, bitterly, vengefully, left her life because, being a child, she had taken a silly fancy to make him jealous! Oh, no, no! I would not dine with him--like that. Life is not like that. I do not know what life is like, for I am not yet a million years old, but I know that it is not like that. It is not so easy as that. THE VOICE: My God, how efficiently you damn him, don’t you! That would be your answer?... Hallo, hallo! Would that be your answer, Shelmerdene, if he came back like--me---- SHELMERDENE: Just like you? THE VOICE: Well? SHELMERDENE: He would just be a man I had dined with once. (_A Silence._) THE VOICE: I am sorry to have disturbed you. Good-night. SHELMERDENE: Come back again, but---- THE VOICE: Good-night, Shelmerdene. SHELMERDENE:--but sweetly, Gerald! Oh, my dear, sweetly! THE VOICE: (_Very faintly_) Good-bye, Shelmerdene. (_There is a soft click at the other end._) SHELMERDENE: Good-bye, you ass! Then Foster came in, with an anxious face. “The car is here, madam.” Shelmerdene turned to her. “Gracious, madam, however will you go out with your eyes like that? Oh, dear!” “Hurry, Foster; dress me! I shall be terribly late!” THE END FOOTNOTES: [A] Armenian Revolutionary Societies. [B] With apologies to, I believe, Catulle Mendès, but I am not sure, for I have not read his works. I would like to, but my French is limited. On the publication of this tale in a journal, a friend told me that the idea had already been used by Catulle Mendès: but I have retained it, I am not sure why. Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber: Aubbrey=> Aubrey {pg 61} Mr. Childer’s political opinions=> Mr. Childers’s political opinions {pg 154} lifted it a litle=> lifted it a little {pg 281} his mesage straight=> his message straight {pg 283}