“I laughed,—­I thought of course it was a joke.  I guess the laugh was revealing, for he turned around suddenly and said: 

“‘You knew I was married, didn’t you, Connie?’ First time he ever called me Connie.

“Well, the halo vanished like a flash and hasn’t got back yet.

“I said, ‘No, I didn’t know it.’

“‘Why, everybody knows it,’ he expostulated.

“‘I did not.’

“‘We are devoted to each other,’ he said, laughing lightly, ’but we find our devotion wears better at long distance.  So she lives wherever I do not, and we get along like birdies in their little nest.  I haven’t seen her for two years.’

“Then he went on with his financial experiences, evidently calling the subject closed.

“When he started home, he said, ‘Well, what shall we do Sunday?’

“‘Nothing, together.  You are married.’

“‘Well, I don’t get any fun out of it, do I?’

“’No, maybe not.  But I have a hunch I won’t get much fun out of it, either.’

“‘I forgot about the parsonage.’  He considered a moment.  ’All right, I’ll hunt her up and have her get a divorce,’ he volunteered cheerfully.

“He was very puzzled and perplexed when I vetoed that.  He says I can’t have the true artistic temperament, I am so ghastly religious.  At any rate, I have not seen him since, and have not answered his notes.  Now, don’t weep over me, Carol, and think my young affections were trifled with.  They weren’t—­because they didn’t have time.  But I am not taking any chances.

“Henceforth I get my sentiment second hand.

“The girl at our table, Emily Jarvis, who is a spherist, attributes all the good fortune that has come to you and David to the fact that at heart you are in harmony with the spheres.  You don’t know what a spherist is, and neither do I. But it includes a lot of musical terms, and metaphors, and is something like Christian Science and New Thought, only more so.  Spherists believe in a life of harmony, and somehow or other they get the spheres back of it, and believe in immaterial matter, and that all physical manifestations are negative, and the only positive, or affirmative, is ‘harmony.’

“Emily is very, very pretty, and that sort of excuses her for digging into the intricacies of spheral harmonies.  Even such unmitigated nonsense as sphere control, spirit harmony, and mental submission, assumes a semblance of dignity when expounded by her cherry-red lips.  She speaks vacuously of being under world-dominance, and has absolutely no physical consciousness.  She says so herself.  If she ignores her tempting curves and matchless softness, she is the only one in the house who does.  In fact, it is only the attraction of her very physical being, which she denies, that lends a species of sense to her harmonious converse.  She and I are great friends.  She says I am a harmonizer on the inside.