eed, there was bathos in the step; it seemed an ugly concession to
actuality. It may have been; for Audrey was nothing if not modern, the
daughter of an age that has flirted with half-a-dozen ideals, all
equally fascinating, and finally decided in favour of a mature realism.
She may have learned that hardest lesson of the schools, the translation
of life's drama from fancy into fact; found out that all the time the
grey old chorus has been singing, not of love and joy, as she once in
her ignorance imagined, but of unspeakable rest on the great consoling
platitudes of life, where there is no more revelation because there is
no mystery, and no despair because there is no hope. The text of that
chorus is often corrupt, but the meaning is never hopelessly obscure. In
other words, she may have married Mr. Jackson in a fit of pessimism.

Or perhaps--perhaps she had profited by the more cheerful though equally
important lesson of the playground; learned that whether the game of
life be fast or slow, dull or amusing, matters little when you are
knocked out in the first round (she herself had had many rounds, not
counting Mr. Jackson); that in these circumstances one may still find
considerable entertainment in looking on; and that in any case the
player is not for the game, but the game for the player. The player--who
may be left on the ground long after all games have been played out. But
this is to suppose that Audrey was a philosopher, which is manifestly
absurd.

Perhaps! More likely than not her revelation came when she was least
looking for it, stumbling by the merest accident on one of "the great
things of life," the eternal, the incomprehensible; for of these some
say that the greatest is love. It is certainly the most
incomprehensible. She may have loved Mr. Jackson. If she did not, she
has never let him know it.

THE END

+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| Transcriber's note |
| |
| The spelling of the following words which appear to be |
| printers errors has been changed. |
| |
| gods to goods |
| effection to affection