an't you see?" I cried, as far as the paroxysms of my mirth would let
me. "Can't you see how exquisitely ludicrous the whole thing has been
from beginning to end? Don't you realise that you and I are playing
the same scene as we played months ago in my library, with the only
difference that we have changed roles? I'm the raving, infatuated youth,
and you're the grave and reverend mentor. Don't you see? Don't you see?"

"I can't see anything to laugh at," said Dale sturdily.

And he couldn't. There are thousands of bright, flame-like human beings
constituted like that. Life spreads out before them one of its most
side-splitting, topsy-turvy farces and they see in it nothing to laugh
at.

To Dale the affair had been as serious and lacking in the fantastic as
the measles. He had got over the disease and now was exceedingly sorry
to perceive that I had caught it in my turn.

"It isn't funny a bit," he continued. "It's quite natural. I see it all
now. You cut me out from the very first. You didn't mean to--you never
thought of it. But what chance had I against you? I was a young ass and
you were a brilliant man of the world. I bear you no grudge. You played
the game in that way. Then things happened--and at last you've fallen in
love with her--and now just at the critical moment she has gone off into
space. It must be devilish painful for you, if you ask me."

"Oh, Dale," said I, shaking my head, "the only fitting end to the farce
would be if you wandered over Europe to find and bring her back to me."

"I don't know about that," said he, "because I'm engaged, and that, as I
said, gives me occupation; but if I can do anything practicable, my dear
old Simon, you've only got to send for me."

He pulled out his watch.

"My hat!" he exclaimed. "It's past two o'clock."

CHAPTER XXII

I am a personage apart from humanity. I vary from the kindly ways of
man. A curse is on me.

Surely no man has fought harder than I have done to convince himself of
the deadly seriousness of existence; and surely before the feet of
no man has Destiny cast such stumbling-blocks to faith. I might be an
ancient dweller in the Thebaid struggling towards dreams of celestial
habitations, and confronted only by grotesque visions of hell. No
matter what I do, I'm baffled. I look upon sorrow and say, "Lo, this is
tragedy!" and hey, presto! a trick of lightning turns it into farce. I
cry aloud, in perfervid zeal, "Life is real, life is earnest,