“How can you, Harry!” cried Dorian.

“It is a most romantic explanation,” laughed the hostess.  “But her third husband, Lord Henry!  You don’t mean to say Ferrol is the fourth?”

“Certainly, Lady Narborough.”

“I don’t believe a word of it.”

“Well, ask Mr. Gray.  He is one of her most intimate friends.”

“Is it true, Mr. Gray?”

“She assures me so, Lady Narborough,” said Dorian.  “I asked her whether, like Marguerite de Navarre, she had their hearts embalmed and hung at her girdle.  She told me she didn’t, because none of them had had any hearts at all.”

“Four husbands!  Upon my word that is trop de zele.”

“Trop d’audace, I tell her,” said Dorian.

“Oh! she is audacious enough for anything, my dear.  And what is Ferrol like?  I don’t know him.”

“The husbands of very beautiful women belong to the criminal classes,” said Lord Henry, sipping his wine.

Lady Narborough hit him with her fan.  “Lord Henry, I am not at all surprised that the world says that you are extremely wicked.”

“But what world says that?” asked Lord Henry, elevating his eyebrows.  “It can only be the next world.  This world and I are on excellent terms.”

“Everybody I know says you are very wicked,” cried the old lady, shaking her head.

Lord Henry looked serious for some moments.  “It is perfectly monstrous,” he said, at last, “the way people go about nowadays saying things against one behind one’s back that are absolutely and entirely true.”

“Isn’t he incorrigible?” cried Dorian, leaning forward in his chair.

“I hope so,” said his hostess, laughing.  “But really, if you all worship Madame de Ferrol in this ridiculous way, I shall have to marry again so as to be in the fashion.”

“You will never marry again, Lady Narborough,” broke in Lord Henry.  “You were far too happy.  When a woman marries again, it is because she detested her first husband.  When a man marries again, it is because he adored his first wife.  Women try their luck; men risk theirs.”

“Narborough wasn’t perfect,” cried the old lady.

“If he had been, you would not have loved him, my dear lady,” was the rejoinder.  “Women love us for our defects.  If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our intellects.  You will never ask me to dinner again after saying this, I am afraid, Lady Narborough, but it is quite true.”

“Of course it is true, Lord Henry.  If we women did not love you for your defects, where would you all be?  Not one of you would ever be married.  You would be a set of unfortunate bachelors.  Not, however, that that would alter you much.  Nowadays all the married men live like bachelors, and all the bachelors like married men.”

“Fin de siecle,” murmured Lord Henry.

“Fin du globe,” answered his hostess.

“I wish it were fin du globe,” said Dorian with a sigh. 
“Life is a great disappointment.”