d. "I am
quite sure that mine come because I find it so hard to be amused. I am
sure I am most enterprising. I try whatever comes along, but nothing
satisfies me."

"Why not try being in love with one of these men who've been in love
with you all their lives?"

She laughed bitterly.

"The men who have cared for me and have been worth caring about," she
said, "gave me up years ago. I mocked at them when they were in earnest,
scoffed at sentiment, and told them frankly that when I married it would
only be to find a refuge for broader life. The right sort wouldn't have
anything to say to me after that, and I do not blame them. And here is
the torture of it. I can't stand the wrong sort near me--physically, I
mean. Mind, I believe I'm attracted towards people with criminal tastes
and propensities. I believe that is what first led me towards Sir
Timothy. Every taste I ever had in life seems to have become besmirched.
I'm all the time full of the craving to do horrible things, but all the
same I can't bear to be touched. That's the torment of it. I wonder if
you can understand?"

"I think I can," he answered. "Your trouble lies in having the wrong
friends and in lack of self-discipline. If you were my sister, I'd take
you away for a fortnight and put you on the road to being cured."

"Then I wish I were your sister," she sighed.

"Don't think I'm unsympathetic," he went on, "because I'm not. Wait till
we've got into the main road here and I'll try and explain."

They were passing along a country lane, so narrow that twigs from the
hedges, wreathed here and there in wild roses, brushed almost against
their cheeks. On their left was the sound of a reaping-machine and the
perfume of new-mown hay. The sun was growing stronger at every moment. A
transitory gleam of pleasure softened her face.

"It is ages since I smelt honeysuckle," she confessed, "except in a
perfumer's shop. I was wondering what it reminded me of."

"That," he said, as they turned out into the broad main road, with its
long vista of telegraph poles, "is because you have been neglecting the
real for the sham, flowers themselves for their artificially distilled
perfume. What I was going to try and put into words without sounding too
priggish, Lady Cynthia," he went on, "is this. It is just you people who
are cursed with a restless brain who are in the most dangerous position,
nowadays. The things which keep us healthy and normal physically--games,
farce