“Don’t you think,” she said in a low voice, “they are a well-matched pair?  Both young and picturesque; it would solve many things.”

I glanced round.  Carlotta, elbow on the table and chin in hand, was looking deep into Pasquale’s eyes, just as she has looked into mine.  Her lips had the half-sensuous, half-childish pout provocative of kisses.

“Do, and I will love you,” I heard her say.

Oh, those dove-notes, those melting eyes, those lips!  Oh, the horrible fool passion that burns out my soul and brain and reduces me to rave like a lovelorn early Victorian tailor!  Which was worse I know not—­the spasm of jealousy or the spasm of self-contempt that followed it.  At that moment the music ceased suddenly on a loud crashing chord.

The moment seemed to be magnetic to all but Carlotta, who was enjoying herself prodigiously.  Our three personalities appeared to vibrate rudely one against the other.  I was conscious that Judith read me, that Pasquale read Judith, that again something telegraphic passed between them.  The waiter offered me partridge.  Pasquale quickly turned from Carlotta to his left-hand neighbour.

“I think we ought to drink Faust’s health, don’t you?”

I started.  Had I not myself traced the analogy?

“Faust?” queried Judith at a loss.

“Our friend Faust opposite me,” said Pasquale, raising his champagne glass.  “Hasn’t he been transformed from the lean and elderly bookworm into the gay, young gallant about the town?  Once one could scarcely drag him from his cell to the quietest of dinners, and now—­has he told you of his dissipations this past month, Mrs. Mainwaring

Judith smiled.  “Have you been Mephistopheles?”

“What is Mephistopheles?” asked Carlotta.

“The devil,” said Pasquale, “who made Sir Marcus young again.”

“Oh, that’s me,” cried Carlotta, clapping her hands.  “He does not read in big books any longer.  Oh, I was so frightened when I first came.” (I must say she hid her terrors pretty effectually.) “He was so wise, and always reading and writing, and I thought he was fifty.  And now he is not wise at all, and he said two, three days ago I had made him twenty-five.”

“If you go on at the rate you have begun, my dear,” Judith remarked in her most charming manner, “in another year you will have brought him down to long clothes and a feeding-bottle.”

Carlotta thought this very funny and laughed joyously.  I laughed too, out of courtesy, at Judith’s bitter sarcasm, and turned the conversation, but Pasquale was not to be baulked of his toast.

“Here’s to our dear friend Faust; may he grow younger and younger every day.”

We clinked glasses.  Judith sighed when the performance was concluded.

“That is one of the many advantages of being a man.  If you do sell your soul to the devil you can see that you get proper payment.  A woman is paid in promissory notes, which are dishonoured when they fall due.”