murmured. "What an upheaval! Fancy Mephistopheles on a steamer!"
"He was, at any rate, the most interesting of that little trio," Wingrave remarked, "but even he was a trifle heavy."
"Do you go about the world preaching your new doctrines?" she asked.
"Not I!" he answered. "Nothing would every make a missionary of me, for good or for evil, for the simple reason that no one else's welfare except my own has the slightest concern for me."
"What hideous selfishness!" she said softly. "But I don't think--you quite mean it?"
"I can assure you I do," he answered drily. "My world consists of myself for the central figure, and the half a dozen or so of people who are useful or amusing to me! Except that the rest are needed to keep moving the machinery of the world, they might all perish, so far as I was concerned."
"I don't think," Mrs. Travers said softly, "that I should like to be in your world."
"I can very easily believe you," he answered.
"Unless," she remarked tentatively, "I came to convert!"
He nodded.
"There is something in that," he admitted. "It would be a great work, a little difficult, you know."
"All the more interesting!"
"You see," he continued, "I am not only bad, but I admire badness. My wish is to remain bad--in fact, I should like to be worse if I knew how. You would find it hard to make a start. I couldn't even admit that a state of goodness was desirable!"
She looked at him curiously. The night air was perhaps getting colder, for she shivered, and drew the rug a little closer around her.
"You speak like a prophet," she remarked.
"A prophet of evil then!"
She looked at him steadfastly. The lightness had gone out of her tone.
"Do you know," she said, "I am almost sorry that I ever knew you?"
He shook his head.
"You can't mean it," he declared.
"Why not?"
"I have done you the greatest service one human being can render another! I have saved you from being bored!"
She nodded.
"That may be true," she admitted. "But can you conceive no worse state in the world than being bored?"
"There is no worse state," he answered drily. "I was bored once," he added, "for ten years or so; I ought to know!"
"Were you married?" she asked.
He shook his head.
"Not quite so bad as that," he answered. "I was in prison!"
She turned a startled face towards him.
"Nonsense!"
"It is perfectly true," he said coolly. "Are you horrified?"
"What did you do?" she asked in a low tone.
"I killed a man."

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