om a hydrostatic pressure of
emotion than from anything else. Upon my soul, that's so."

"You are right, General," said Lambert. "The steady way is the best
way. The world is a passable place, if a fellow has a decent income by
inheritance, or can earn a big one, but to be really contented to earn
money it must be a big one, otherwise he is far better pleased to take
the small inherited income. It has a lot of dignity, which the other can
only bring when it is large."

"That's only true in this country; it's not true in America," said
Frank, "for there the man who doesn't earn money is looked upon as a
muff, and is treated as such. A small inherited income is thought to be
a trifle enervating. But there is a country of emotions, if you like.
The American heart is worn upon the American sleeve, and the American
mind is the most active thing in this world. That's why they grow old so
young."

"I met a woman a year or so ago at dinner," said Vidall, "who looked
forty. She looked it, and she acted it. She was younger than any woman
present, but she seemed older. There was a kind of hopeless languor
about her which struck me as pathetic. Yet she had been beautiful, and
might even have been so when I saw her, if it hadn't been for that
look. It was the look of a person who had no interest in things. And the
person who has no interest in things is the person who once had a great
deal of interest in things, who had too passionate an interest. The
revulsion is always terrible. Too much romance is deadly. It is as false
a stimulant as opium or alcohol, and leaves a corresponding mark. Well,
I heard her history. She was married at fifteen--ran away to be married;
and in spite of the fact that a railway accident nearly took her husband
from her on the night of her marriage--one would have thought that would
make a strong bond--she was soon alive to the attentions that are given
a pretty and--considerate woman. At a ball at Naples, her husband,
having in vain tried to induce her to go home, picked her up under his
arm and carried her out of the ballroom. Then came a couple of years of
opium-eating, fierce social excitement, divorce, new marriage, and so
on, until her husband agreeably decided to live in Nice, while she lived
somewhere else. Four days after I had met her at the dinner I saw
her again. I could scarcely believe my eyes. The woman had changed
completely. She was young again-twenty-five, in face and carriage, in
the e