So we sat, easier now, as I admit, and, with small concern for the affairs of the world outside at the time, discussed the very excellent omelet, which certainly did not allow the reputation of Threlka to suffer; the delicately grilled bones, the crisp toasted rye bread, the firm yellow butter, the pungent early cress, which made up a meal sufficiently dainty even for her who presided over it. Even that pitiless light of early morning, the merciless cross-light of opposing windows, was gentle with her. Yes, she was young! Moreover, she ate as a person of breeding, and seemed thoroughbred in all ways, if one might use a term so hackneyed. Rank and breeding had been hers; she needed not to claim them, for they told their own story. I wondered what extraordinary history of hers remained untold--what history of hers and mine and of others she might yet assist in making! "I was saying," she remarked presently, "that I would not have you think that I do not appreciate the suffering in which you were plunged by the haste you found necessary in the wedding of your _jeune fille_." But I was on my guard. "At least, I may thank you for your sympathy, Madam!" I replied. "Yet in time," she went on, gone reflective the next instant, "you will see how very unimportant is all this turmoil of love and marriage." "Indeed, there is, as you say, something of a turmoil regarding them in our institutions as they are at present formed." "Because the average of humanity thinks so little. Most of us judge life from its emotions. We do not search the depths." "If I could oblige Madam by abolishing society and home and humanity, I should be very glad--because, of course, that is what Madam means!" "At any cost," she mused, "that torture of life must be passed on to coming generations for their unhappiness, their grief, their misery. I presume it was necessary that there should be this plan of the general blindness and intensity of passion." "Yes, if, indeed, it be not the most important thing in the world for us to marry, at least it is important that we should think so. Madam is philosopher this morning," I said, smiling. She hardly heard me. "To continue the crucifixion of the soul, to continue the misapprehensions, the debasings of contact with human life--yes, I suppose one must pay all that for the sake of the gaining of a purpose. Yet there are those who would endure much for the sake of principle, Monsieur. Some such souls are born, do you not think?" "Yes, Sphinx souls, extraordinary, impossible for the average of us to understand." "That torch of _life_!" she mused. "See! It was only _that_ which you were so eager to pass on to another generation! That was why you were so mad to hasten to the side of that woman. Whereas," she mused still, "it were so much grander and so much nobler to pass on the torch of a _principle_ as well!" "I do not understand."