“When I’m abroad this time,” he soliloquized, “I shall really begin writing my autobiography. There’s nothing like a hotel bedroom to work in.” He scratched his head thoughtfully and even picked his nose, which was one of his bad habits, when he was alone. “People who know me,” he went on, “will think that what I write about the governess cart and my mother and the flowers and so on is written merely because I know in here,” he scratched his head a little harder to show himself that he referred to his brain, “that that’s the sort of thing one ought to write about. They’ll think I’m a sort of dingy Romain Rolland, hopelessly trying to pretend that I feel the emotions and have the great spiritual experiences, which the really important people do feel and have. And perhaps they’ll be right. Perhaps the Life of Gumbril will be as manifestly an _ersatz_ as the Life of Beethoven. On the other hand, they may be astonished to find that it’s the genuine article. We shall see.” Gumbril nodded his head slowly, while he transferred two pennies from his right-hand trouser pocket to his left-hand trouser pocket. He was somewhat distressed to find that these coppers had been trespassing among the silver. Silver was for the right-hand, copper for the left. It was one of the laws which it was extremely unlucky to infringe. “I have a premonition,” he went on, “that one of these days I may become a saint. An unsuccessful flickering sort of saint, like a candle beginning to go out. As for love—m’yes, m’yes. And as for the people I have met—I shall point out that I have known most of the eminent men in Europe, and that I have said of all of them what I said after my first love affair: Is that all?” “Did you really say that about your first love affair?” asked Mrs. Viveash, who had woken up again. “Didn’t you?” “No. I said: This _is_ all—everything, the universe. In love, it’s either all or nothing at all.” She shut her eyes and almost immediately went to sleep again. Gumbril continued his lullaby-soliloquy.