"And why is that?" asked Morewood; "not because you think better of other people, but because you know more of yourself." "That is so," said Ayre. "Standing midway between youth and age, I am an arbiter. You judge others by yourself. In youth you have an unduly good opinion of yourself, that unduly depresses your opinion of others. In age it's the opposite way. But who knows which is more wrong?" "At least let us hope age is right, Sir Roderick," said Mrs. Lane. "By all means," said he. "All this doesn't touch my point," said Claudia. "You are accounting for it as if it existed. My point was that it didn't exist. I said it was all affectation." "And not the only sort of affectation of the same kind!" said Kate Bernard, with remarkable emphasis. Sir Roderick enjoyed a troubled sea. Turning to Kate, with a rapid side glance at Claudia on the way, he said: "That's interesting. How do you mean, Miss Bernard?" "All attempts to put one's self forward, to be peculiar, and so on, are the same kind of affectation, and are odious--especially in women." There was nothing very much in the words, and Kate was careful to look straight in front of her as she uttered them. Still they told. "You mean," said Ayre, "there may be an affectation of freshness and enthusiasm--gush, in fact--as bad, or worse, than cynicism, and really springing from the same root?" Kate had not arrived at any such definite meaning, but she nodded her head. "An assumed sprightliness," continued Ayre cheerfully, "perhaps coquettishness?" "Exactly," Kate assented, "and a way of pushing into conversations which my mother used to say girls had better let alone." This was tolerably direct, but it did not satisfy Ayre's malicious humor, and he was on the point of a new question when Haddington, who had taken no part in the previous conversation, but had his reasons for interfering now, put in suavely: "If Miss Bernard and you, Ayre, will forgive me, are we not wandering from the point?" "Was there any point to wander from?" suggested Eugene. So they drifted through the evening, skirting the coast of quarrels and talking of everything except that of which they were thinking. Verily, love affairs do not always conduce to social enjoyment--more especially other people's love affairs. Still, Sir Roderick Ayre was entertained.