and the
apotheosis of the fantastic is not its goal," and immediately a grinning
irony comes to give the lie to my credo.

Or is it that, by inscrutable decree of the Almighty Powers, I am
undergoing punishment for an old unregenerate point of view, being
doomed to wear my detested motley for all eternity, to stretch out my
hand for ever to grasp realities and find I can do nought but beat the
air with my bladder; to listen with strained ear perpetually expectant
of the music of the spheres, and catch nothing but the mocking jingle of
the bells on my fool's cap?

I don't know. I give it up.

Such were my thoughts on the morning after my interview with Dale, when
I had read a long, long letter from Lola, which she had despatched from
Paris.

The letter lies before me now, many pages in a curious, half-formed
foreign hand. Many would think it an ill-written letter--for there are
faults of spelling and faults of grammar--but even now, as I look
on those faults, the tears come into my eyes. Oh, how exquisitely,
pathetically, monumentally, sublimely foolish! She had little or nothing
to do with it, poor dear; it was only the Arch-Jester again, leading her
blindly away, so as once more to leave me high and dry on the Hill of
Derision.

". . . My dear, you must forgive me! My heart is breaking, but I know
I'm doing right. There is nothing for it but to go out of your life for
ever. It terrifies me to think of it, but it's the only way. I know you
think you love me, dear; but you can't, you can't _really_ love a woman
so far beneath you, and I would sooner never see you again than marry
you and wake up one day and find that you hated and scorned me. . . ."

Can you wonder that I shook my fist at Heaven and danced with rage?

". . . Miss Eleanor Faversham called on me just a few minutes after you
left me that afternoon. We had a long, long talk. Simon, dear, you must
marry her. You loved her once, for you were engaged, and only broke it
off because you thought you were going to die; and she loves you, Simon,
and she is a lady with all the refinement and education that I could
never have. She is of your class, dear, and understands you, and can
help you on, whereas I could only drag you down. I am not fit to black
her boots. . . ."

And so forth, and so forth, in the most heartrending strain of insensate
self-sacrifice and heroic self-abasement. The vainest and most heartless
dog of a man stands abashed and helpless