“Lord, I’m not in love with the little Ramsay, if that’s what’s on your mind.” “I know you’re not. Why play at it?” “Fun!” said Gerald. He left her and Cecily sat thinking of his last word and how she had come to hate it. It typified all the cheapness she despised. It amazed her to see how, during these few weeks of semi-unwilling participation in “fun” she had come to formulate a philosophy which definitely excluded it. Where she had been indifferent, she was now condemnatory. From where she sat on the veranda she could see the ballroom. Dick was looking for her, Walter was dancing, not with a girl his own age, but with Fliss. Fliss was dancing just as Helen Ramsay had danced, close up to Walter, head against his shoulder, and Walter was talking to her in admiration. That was clear. An unaccustomed anger rose in Cecily. Her bodily weariness and her spasm of anger left her faint. As she turned, shuddering a little, she saw Matthew. “Aren’t you well?” “Tired--could you slip out and take me home?” But, once in his big car he did not take her home, a matter of a dozen blocks. Instead he turned to the road which circled the boulevards. “Hush,” he said, at her protest. “I told Dick that you were too tired to dance and that I was going to take you for a ride. It’s all fixed. I’ll be back there long before Fliss is ready to go. And I’ve not had a chance to talk to you for ages.” But they did not talk much. They watched the city below them, spreading so big, a thousand lights coming from places of comedy and tragedy all intermingled. Once she roused herself out of her relaxation to tell him how peaceful she felt. He merely nodded. High over the city he stopped on the very crest of the hills and shut off the motor. The place was black and silent and isolated. Stars hung close and the city looked small and remote. “How infinitesimal it all is--all the fuss down there,” said Cecily. “Of course you’d feel that,” said Matthew, lighting a cigarette. “That’s why I brought you up. It’ll do you good. You mustn’t let things as small as that eat you up, Cecily.” “What do you mean?” “Don’t let things bother you. Nothing matters an awful lot.” “Life matters. So Mother Fénelon said once.” “Perhaps it does--perhaps she’s right. But only in the large. Certainly little habits of life don’t.” “It’s easy to feel that way up here, but down in the midst of those lights you can’t get the sweep of things. Little things irritate--habits of life do matter.” “You ought to get away by yourself more. When I feel irritated I go up to my rooms and read what a lot of my betters, long dead, had to say and had to think.” “Can’t be done by the mother of three.” “I question that. The mother of three would certainly profit. I hate to see you all harassed. It isn’t right. Since the first day I saw you it’s always been a satisfaction to me just to think of you--even when I didn’t see you--as being calm and peaceful and beautiful. You mustn’t lose those things.”