"Just at first. I soon got over it. But they say one oughtn't to get over it. Oh, you've heard the stories about big men, haven't you? Anyhow some men never do. Why, I've sat behind Huntley and seen his hand tremble like our old friend the aspen leaf--and that when he was Attorney-General!" "Lord!" was Arthur's despairing comment; because a malady which did not spare an Attorney-General must surely be unconquerable by lesser folk. "But I expect it's not quite the same sort," Norton Ward went on, smiling. "It's rather like falling in love, I expect. A man's excited every time he falls in love, but I don't think it's the same sort of excitement as he suffers when he falls in love for the first time--I mean badly." Now the last word of this observation so struck Arthur that he forgot all the earlier part of it--nay, he forgot his malady itself, together with the truth or falsity of the parallel Norton Ward suggested. "Badly? What do you mean by falling in love badly?" "I'm not speaking with regard to morals, Lisle. I mean severely, or utterly, or passionately, or, if you prefer, idiotically." Arthur's lips puckered about his pipe-stem; it was a trick he had. "I think I should call that falling in love well, not badly," he observed gravely. It was the gravity of the speaker, not the import of the thing spoken, which made Norton Ward laugh again and heartily. His was one of those temperaments--sane, practical, concrete, equable--which regard the affairs of love as a very subsidiary matter in real life, in the real life of any individual, that is, for of course they possess a national and racial importance when reduced to statistics. He did not quarrel with the literary convention which exalted love to the highest place--the convention made good reading and produced exciting plays--but it did not answer to real life as he knew it, to the stern yet delightful fight which filled his days, and really filled his wife's too, since she was a partner wherever she could be, and an eager encourager in all things. But what of the great amorists who were also great men and women? Well, how much of that too was play-acting--to the public and to themselves? That was the question his mind instinctively put about such cases. As he looked at Arthur Lisle's slight figure and sensitive face, he felt a compassion for him, a pitying doubt whether so frail a vessel could live in the rough sea on which it had embarked. Characteristically this friendly impulse expressed itself in an invitation to dinner, which was received by Arthur with surprise, delight, and gratitude. "Of course I will, and it really is most awfully kind of you," he said. Norton Ward went off to a consultation with a smile of mingled pity and amusement still on his lips.