Still, he was a man, and therefore bound to assume an air of patronage. “She won’t eat you, really,” he said to Sheila, as they were driving in a hansom down Kensington Palace Gardens. “All you have got to do is to believe in her theories of food. She won’t make you a martyr to them. She measures every half ounce of what she eats, but she won’t starve you; and I am glad to think, Sheila, that you have brought a remarkably good and sensible appetite with you from the Lewis. Oh, by the way, take care you say nothing against Marcus Aurelius.” “I don’t know who he was, dear,” observed Sheila, meekly. “He was a Roman emperor and a philosopher. I suppose it was because he was an emperor that he found it easy to be a philosopher. However, my aunt is nuts on Marcus Aurelius: I beg your pardon, you don’t know the phrase. My aunt makes Marcus Aurelius her Bible, and she is sure to read you bits from him, which you must believe, you know.” “I will try,” said Sheila, doubtfully, “but if--” “Oh, it has nothing to do with religion. I don’t think anybody knows what Marcus Aurelius means, so you may as well believe it. Ingram swears by him, but he is always full of odd crotchets.” “Does Mr. Ingram believe in Marcus Aurelius?” said Sheila, with some accession of interest. “Why, he gave my aunt the book years ago--confound him!--and ever since she has been a nuisance to her friends. For my own part, you know, I don’t believe that Marcus Aurelius was quite such an ass as Plato. He talks the same sort of perpetual commonplaces, but it isn’t about the true, the good and the beautiful. Would you like me to repeat one of the dialogues of Plato--about the immorality of Mr. Cole and the moral effect of the South Kensington Museum?” “No, dear, I shouldn’t,” said Sheila. “You deprive yourself of a treat, but never mind. Here we are at my aunt’s house.” Sheila timidly glanced at the place, while her husband paid the cabman. It was a tall, narrow, dingy-looking house of dark brick, with some black-green ivy at the foot of the walls, and with crimson curtains formally arranged in every one of the windows. If Mrs. Lavender was a rich old lady, why did she live in such a gloomy building? Sheila had seen beautiful white houses in all parts of London; her own house, for example, was ever so much more cheerful than this one, and yet she had heard with awe of the value of this depressing little mansion in Kensington Gore.