“Once there was a man, and he was in love with two women—­oh, yes, Mrs. Duke, it can be done all right.  I have done it myself—­yes, two at the same time.  Ask any man; they can all do it.  Oh, women can’t.  They aren’t broad-minded enough.  It takes a man,—­his heart can hold them all.”  The girls sniffed, but Nevius would not be side-tracked from his story.  “Well, this man loved them both, and they were both worth loving—­young, and fair, and wealthy.  He loved them distractedly.  He loved one because she was soft and sweet and adorable, and he called her Precious.  He loved the other because she was talented and brilliant, a queen among women, the center of every throng, and he called her Glory.  He loved to kiss the one, and he loved to be proud of the other.  They did not know about each other, they lived in different towns.  One night the queenly one was giving a toast at a banquet, and the revelers were leaning toward her, drinking in every word of her rich musical voice, marveling at her brilliancy, when suddenly she saw a tiny figure perch on the table in front of her fiance,—­yes, he was fianceing them both.  The little figure on the table had a sweet, round, dimply face, and wooing lips, and loving eyes.  The fiance took her in his arms, and stroked the round pink cheek, and kissed the curls on her forehead.  Glory faltered, and tried to brush the mist from before her eyes.  She was dreaming,—­there was no tiny figure on the table.  There could not be.  Lover—­they both called him Lover; he had a fancy for the name—­Lover was gazing up at her with eyes full of pride and admiration.  She finished hurriedly and sat down, wiping the moisture from her white brow.  ’Such a strange thing, Lover,’ she whispered.  ’I saw a tiny figure come tripping up to you, and she caressed and kissed you, and ran her fingers over your lips so childishly and—­so adoringly, and—­’ Lover looked startled.  ‘What!’ he ejaculated.  For little Precious had tricks like that.  ‘Yes, and she had one tiny curl over her left ear, and you kissed it.’  ‘You saw that?’ ‘Yes, just now.’  She looked at him; he was pale and disturbed.  ‘Have you ever been married, Lover?’ she asked.  ‘Never,’ he denied quickly.  But he was strangely silent the rest of the evening.  The next morning Glory was ill.  When he called, they took him up to her room, and he sat beside her and held her hand.  ’Another strange thing happened,’ she said.  ’The little beauty who kissed you at the banquet came up to my bed, and put her arms around me and caressed and fondled me and said she loved me because I was so beautiful, and her little white arms seemed to choke me, and I struggled for breath and floundered out of bed, and she kissed me and said I was a darling and tripped away, and—­I fainted.’”

“Mr. Nevius, that isn’t nice,” protested Miss Landbury.