“How late you are,” he said, but his voice was hoarse and only his flushed face told how long had seemed the waiting.

She said, “I was kept⁠—indeed, I was so much annoyed⁠—and⁠—and I may only stay a moment.”

She sat down beside him, casting a furtive glance over her shoulder at the god upon his pedestal.

“What a nuisance, that intruding cupid still there?”

“Wings and arrows too,” said Hastings, unheeding her motion to be seated.

“Wings,” she murmured, “oh, yes⁠—to fly away with when he’s tired of his play. Of course it was a man who conceived the idea of wings, otherwise Cupid would have been insupportable.”

“Do you think so?”