“I do not know him.  Yet he poisoned my happiest years; he is the upas-tree in whose shade I slept.  When I was in Paris I loved a lady; and I used to make sacrifices for this lady, who was, needless to say, not worthy of them; but she had loved Senbrook in her earliest youth, and it appears when a woman has once loved Senbrook, she can love none other.  You wouldn’t think it, to look at him now, but I assure you it is so.  France is filled with the women he once loved.  The provincial towns are dotted with them.  I know eight—­eight exist to my personal knowledge.  Sometimes a couple live together, united by the indissoluble fetter of a Senbrook betrayal.  They know their lives are broken, and they are content that their lives should be broken.  They have loved Senbrook, therefore there is nothing to do but retire to France.  You may think I am joking, but I’m not.  It is comic, but that is no reason why it shouldn’t be true.  And these ladies neither forget nor upbraid; and they will attack you like tigers if you dare say a word against him.  This creation of faith is the certain sign of Don Juan!  No matter how cruelly the real Don Juan behaves, the women he has deceived are ready to welcome him.  After years they meet him in all forgetfulness of wrong.  Examine history, and you will find that the love inspired by the real Don Juan ends only with death.  Nor am I sure that the women attach much importance to his infidelities; they accept them, his infidelities being a consequential necessity of his being, the eons and the attributes of his godhead.  Don Juan inspires no jealousy; Don Juan stabbed by an infuriated mistress is a psychological impossibility.”

“I have heard that Seymour used to drive Lady Helen crazy with jealousy.”

“Don Juan disappears at the church-door.  He was her husband.  The most unfaithful wife is wildly jealous of her husband.”

A sudden silence fell, and a young girl was borne out fainting.

“Nothing more common than for young girls to faint when he is present.  Go,” said Harding, “and you will hear her calling his name.”  Then, picking up the thread of the paradox, he continued—­“But you can’t have Don Juan in this century, our civilization has wiped him out; not the vice of which he is representative—­that is eternal—­but the spectacle of adventure of which he is the hero.  No more fascinating idea.  Had the age admitted of Don Juan, I should have written out his soul long ago.  I love the idea.  With duelling and hose picturesqueness has gone out of life.  The mantle and the rapier are essential; and angry words....”

“Are angry words picturesque?”

“Angry words mean angry attitudes; and they are picturesque.”

The young men smiled at the fascinating eloquence, and feeling an appreciative audience about him, Harding continued—­