were talking of marriage, when even the most
matter-of-fact people are supposed to have illusions. There are not
many girls who would accept a lover who did not believe, for the time,
at least, that he would be happy ever after if he could secure her as a
companion."

"Oh, well!" he said, laughing. "Oh, well!"

Cassandra was left to infer that there were occasions when exaggeration
was legitimate; occasions even when a man might succeed in blindfolding
himself, but the concession did not alter the inward conviction. Once
more she relapsed into silence, considering his words. Peignton was one
of the rare people with whom it was not necessary to carry on a
continuous flow of conversation. One could be silent, pursuing one's
own thoughts with a comfortable assurance that he was mentally keeping
touch, and that when speech came it would be to pronounce a mutual
decision.

"A second best!" Those were the words which had burned themselves on
Cassandra's brain. Life for the majority of people resolved itself into
making the most of a second best. There was plenty of good,
steady-going happiness in store for those who were sensible enough to
take it, and not waste their time straining after the unattainable. The
doctrine was distinctly bracing for those who had fallen into the trough
of disappointment. Cassandra made a mental note to think over its
axioms at her leisure. She had come to the stage when philosophy might
have its turn, but, oh, it was good to remember that there _had_ been a
day when she had not philosophised, had not reasoned, had not made the
best of anything, because youth and hope had already placed that best in
her hands! What if it had been a delusion,--she had had her hour, and
nothing that life could bring could take away its memory!

There stabbed through her heart a passion of pity for the man who was so
calmly ignoring the glory of life. She turned towards him, her eyes
dark with earnestness.

"Ah, no, it's a mistake. Why be satisfied with makeshifts, when there's
a chance of the best? To be too easily satisfied is as foolish as to
expect too much; more foolish, for you miss the dream! If the reality
fails, one can always look backward and remember the dream."

Peignton's air of absorption had no personal reference. The words had
passed over his head in so far as they applied to himself. He was
looking at Cassandra and saying deep in his heart: "That woman! To grow
tired of her