From her she looked out upon the now darkening river. There had been some delay before the train could begin to move back, and the summer twilight had fallen; for the race had been at the last available moment. Though it was far from quiet, the relief from the tension of the previous moments added to the placidity of the scene. The opposite banks were dim and shadowy, and the water was growing vague; there were lights on some of the craft; a star came out, and then another; there were no hard suggestions, no sordid reminders. It was a beautiful world, filled with happy people, united in a common healthy interest; the outlines of separation were softened into ambiguity and the differences veiled by good breeding. "It is only a mimic struggle, after all," she said at last. "The stage is well set, and now that the curtain is down, there is no special bitterness at the way the play ended." "There you exaggerate, as usual," he replied, "and of course in another direction from that in which you exaggerated last time." "The pursuit of literature has made you not only precise but didactic," she observed. "There is a good deal, if not of bitterness, of very real disappointment, and some depression." "Which will be all gone long before the curtain goes up for the next performance." "Ah, yes, to be sure; but nevertheless you underrate the disappointments of youth,--because they are not tragic you think they are not bitter,--you have always underrated them." She met his eyes calmly, though he had spoken with a certain emphasis. "We are talking in a circle," she replied. "That was what I said in the first place--that as we grow older we have more sympathy with defeat." "You are incorrigible," he said, smiling; "you will accept neither consolation nor reproof." "Life brings enough of both," she answered; "it does not need to be supplemented by one's friends." The train was moving very slowly; people were laughing and talking gayly all about them; more lights had come out on the water, and a gentle breeze had suddenly sprung up. "Just what do you mean by that, I wonder?" he said slowly. "Not much," she answered lightly. "But I do mean," she added, as he looked away from her, "that, whether it be the consequence of the altruism of the day, or of advancing age, as I said at first, it has grown to be provokingly difficult to ignore those who lose more serious things than a college championship. Verestchagin and such people have spoiled history for us. Who cares who won a great battle now?--it is such a small thing to our consciousness compared to the number of people who were killed--and on one side as well as the other." "Except, of course, where there is a great principle, not great possessions, at stake?" "Yes," she assented, but somewhat doubtfully, "yes, of course." "But it shows a terrible dearth of interest when we get down to principles."