graceful that the action
resembled nothing so much as the sway of a lily in a light wind.

"Thanks, gentle Knight!--flower of chivalry!" she said--"I see you love
me in spite of yourself!"

He made a quick stride towards her,--then stopped. "Love you!" he
echoed,--then laughed loudly and derisively-"Great God! Love you? YOU?
If I did I should be mad! When will you learn the truth of me?--that
women are less in my estimation than the insects crawling on a blade of
grass or spawning in a stagnant pond?--that they have no power to move
me to the smallest pulse of passion or desire?--and that you, of all
your sex, seem to my mind the most--"

"Hateful?" she suggested, smilingly.

"No--the most complete and unmitigated bore!"

"Dreadful!" and she made a face at him like that of a naughty
child,--then she sank down on the sun-baked turf in an easy
half-reclining attitude--"It's certainly much worse to be a bore than
to be hated. Hate is quite a live sentiment,--besides it always means,
or HAS meant--love! You can't hate anything that is quite indifferent
to you, but of course you CAN be bored! YOU are bored by me and I am
bored by YOU!--and we are absolutely indifferent to each other! What a
comedy it is! Isn't it?"

He stood still and sombre, gazing down at the figure resting on the
ground at his feet, its white garments gathering about it as though
they were sentiently aware that they must keep the line of classic
beauty in every fold.

"Boredom is the trouble"--she went on--"No one escapes it. The very
babies of to-day are bored. We all know too much. People used to be
happy because they were ignorant--they had no sort of idea why they
were born, or what they came into the world for. Now they've learned
the horrid truth that they are only here just as the trees and flowers
are here--to breed other trees and flowers and then go out of it--for
no purpose, apparently. They are 'disillusioned.' They say 'what's the
use?' To put up with so much trouble and labour for the folks coining
after us whom we shall never see,--it seems perfectly foolish and
futile. They used to believe in another life after this--but that hope
has been knocked out of them. Besides it's quite open to question
whether any of us would care to live again. Probably it might mean more
boredom. There's really nothing left. That's why so many of us go
reckless--it's just to escape being bored."

He listened in cold silence. After a pause--

"Have