do you never
come to see us? and where have you been hiding yourself all the
evening?"

Rainham laughed gently.

"I feel rather guilty, I own; but you know there is an execrable
proverb which says, 'Duty first, and pleasure afterwards.' I have
been living up to it, that's all. If you only knew how I have been
longing to talk to somebody who wouldn't ask me whether the music
didn't fill me with a passionate desire to dance! And how good it is
to be with a person who doesn't ask you whether you play much
lawn-tennis, or whether you prefer London to the country on the
whole. Ah, Mary! I consider myself a model of self-denial; but I am
rewarded now."

"That's rather pretty for you," answered the girl approvingly; "and
you are forgiven, though you have still to make your peace with Aunt
Marcelle. Tell me what you have been doing, and what you have been
reading...."

The conversation drifted on, now and again becoming general, and
including the rest of the circle, but always recurring and narrowing
into the deeper stream of their old intimacy.

"You are the only really satisfactory people I know," he said
presently--"the only people who know how to enjoy life, so far as it
is to be enjoyed."

"You mustn't give me any credit for it; it's all Aunt Marcelle's
doing. But I don't think I know what you mean exactly. Perhaps we
oughtn't to feel flattered?"

"I mean, you are the only people who understand that happiness
doesn't depend on what one does or doesn't do--that it all depends
on the point of view."

"The way of looking at life generally?" she hazarded.

"Precisely. True philosophy only admits one point of view--from
outside. Aren't we always being told that life is only a play? Well,
we clever people are the spectators, the audience. We look at the
play from a comfortable seat in the stalls; and when the curtain
drops at the end, we go home quietly and--sleep."

Mary looked at him for a moment silently.

"I'm not at all sure that we ought to feel flattered! You consider
that you and I and her ladyship are spectators, then. Isn't it very
selfish?"

"More or less. Of course, it's impossible to do the thing thoroughly
without being absolutely selfish--a hermit, in fact. I sometimes
think I was intended for a hermit."

Mary sighed covertly, though the smile still lingered in her brown
eyes.

"I'm afraid I only take a kind of sideways view of things. I should
like to--to----"

"To go up in a kind of mora