“Mr. Murray, if you insist upon your bitter Osher smile, why shut your eyes to the palpable analogy suggested?  Naturalists assert that the Solanum, or apple of Sodom, contains in its normal state neither dust nor ashes, unless it is punctured by an insect (the Tenthredo), which converts the whole of the inside into dust, leaving nothing but the rind entire, without any loss of color.  Human life is as fair and tempting as the fruit of ‘Ain Jidy,’ till stung and poisoned by the Tenthredo of sin.”

All conceivable suaviter in modo characterized his mocking countenance and tone, as he inclined his haughty head and asked: 

“Will you favor me by lifting on the point of your dissecting-knife this stinging sin of mine to which you refer?  The noxious brood swarm so teasingly about my ears that they deprive me of your cool, clear, philosophic discrimination.  Which particular Tenthredo of the buzzing swarm around my spoiled apple of life would you advise me to select for my anathema maranatha?”

“Of your history, sir, I am entirely ignorant; and even if I were not, I should not presume to levy a tax upon it in discussions with you; for, however vulnerable you may possibly be, I regard an argumentum ad hominem as the weakest weapon in the armory of dialectics—­a weapon too often dipped in the venom of personal malevolence.  I merely gave expression to my belief that miserable, useless lives are sinful lives; that when God framed the world, and called the human race into it, he made most munificent provision for all healthful hunger, whether physical, intellectual, or moral; and that it is a morbid, diseased, distorted nature that wears out its allotted years on earth in bitter carping and blasphemous dissatisfaction.  The Greeks recognized this immemorial truth—­ wrapped it in classic traditions, and the myth of Tantalus constituted its swaddling-clothes.  You are a scholar, Mr. Murray; look back and analyze the derivation and significance of that fable.  Tantalus, the son of Pluto, or Wealth, was, according to Pindar, ’a wanderer from happiness,’ and the name represents a man abounding in wealth, but whose appetite was so insatiable, even at the ambrosial feast of the gods, that it ultimately doomed him to eternal unsatisfied thirst and hunger in Tartarus.  The same truth crops out in the legend of Midas, who found himself starving while his touch converted all things to gold.”

“Doubtless you have arrived at the charitable conclusion that, as I am endowed with all the amiable idiosyncrasies of ancient cynics, I shall inevitably join the snarling Dives Club in Hades, and swell the howling chorus.  Probably I shall not disappoint your kind and eminently Christian expectations; nor will I deprive you of the gentle satisfaction of hissing across the gulf of perdition, which will then divide us, that summum bonum of feminine felicity, ’I told you so!’”

The reckless mockery of his manner made Edna shiver, and a tremor crept across her beautiful lips as she answered sadly: