It does seem a bit unfair, my dear, I know. But
that is simply because you and I are living in a universe which has
never actually committed itself, under any penalizing bond, to be
entirely candid as to the laws by which it is conducted."

* * * * *

But it may be that Rudolph Musgrave voiced quite obsolete views. For he
said this at a very remote period--when the Beef Trust was being
"investigated" in Washington; when an excited Iberian constabulary was
still hunting the anarchists who had attempted to assassinate the young
King and Queen of Spain upon their wedding-day; when the rebuilding of
an earthquake-shattered San Francisco was just beginning to be talked of
as a possibility; and when editorials were mostly devoted to discussion
of what Mr. Bryan would have to say about bi-metallism when he returned
from his foreign tour.

And, besides, it was Rudolph Musgrave's besetting infirmity always to
shrink--under shelter of whatever grandiloquent excuse--from making
changes. One may permissibly estimate this foible to have weighed with
him a little, even now, just as in all things it had always weighed in
Lichfield with all his generation. An old custom is not lightly broken.

PART TEN - IMPRIMIS

"So let us laugh, lest vain rememberings
Breed, as of old, some rude bucolic cry
Of awkward anguishes, of dreams that die
Without decorum, of Love lacking wings
Yet striving you-ward in his flounderings
Eternally,--as now, even when I lie
As I lie now, who know that you and I
Exist and heed not lesser happenings.

"I was. I am. I will be. Eh, no doubt
For some sufficient cause, I drift, defer,
Equivocate, dream, hazard, grow more stout,
Age, am no longer Love's idolater,--
And yet I could and would not live without
Your faith that heartens and your doubts which spur."

LIONEL CROCHARD. _Palinodia_.

I

So weeks and months, and presently irrevocable years, passed tranquilly;
and nothing very important seemed to happen nowadays, either for good or
ill; and Rudolph Musgrave was content enough.

True, there befell, and with increasing frequency, periods when one must
lie abed, and be coaxed into taking interminable medicines, and be
ministered unto generally, because one was of a certain age nowadays,
and must be prudent. But even such necessities, these underhanded
indignities of time, had their alleviations. Trained nurses, for
example,