And yet I must confess that even this prospect at moments had its lusterless side. For when one can flatly expect and predict the outcome of amorous adventure, one’s ambitions tend to slacken and one takes a smug assurance from what knowledge can anticipate. No, for me, I had to confess, the unexpected and the bizarre created the elixir of excitement in the brew of virile escapade, from which goblet I had always drunk with zest and eagerness.

In short, I was accustoming myself to feel the relatively calmer fervor of a loving husband rather than the devilish and satyr-like avidity of the perennial hunter who constantly seeks new and fresh prey to whet his carnal appetites.

And then the goddess Venus, to whom I hadall my life paid such adoring tribute, smiled on me the day before my beloved Alice was due to return to London. She, of all omniscient women, could best appreciate my feelings. So perhaps it was a kind of wedding gift that she sent to my door on this somewhat rainy and bleak afternoon preceding the day of Alice’s homecoming.

I had not, of course, been expecting anyone at all, and so the day being gloomy, I had put on only my trousers, braces, and robe, socks and a pair of slippers, and made myself comfortable with one of Mr. Charles Dickens’ best novels, appropriately entitled Great Expectations. I trow that our Lady Venus, the patroness of all devoted men, must have peered down from Mount Olympus and smiled to behold the work I had selected to occupy my solitary thoughts this dreary afternoon. For I had no great expectations whatsoever, except for the morrow.

What was my surprise then to hear the peal of the bell. Frowning as I sought to recall who it was that might have taken it into his head to call upon me, and finding no answer to that question, I approached my door and opened it.