“If pebbles were as rare, we should most of us prefer them to diamonds, I expect, and only a few would say, ‘Ah, but they don’t shine!’ How you will shake your head, dear! but, trust me, proximity and the hat that suits weigh a good deal more than a fine character with most men, and Gladys always chooses her hats well. Women of my age are past the time of romance (Edith le Mentier would scarcely agree with me). Legitimate romance, at any rate—if there is such a thing—is a little worn out, and I’m not one of the sort that prefer religion to rouge, yet to-night I can’t help confessing the game seems not worth the candle. Not much behind, and not much before, and very little for the meantime. Still I should marry if I were you. You’ll have the compensation of saying ‘Well, that’s done,’ and when everything else seems unsubstantial the solid inevitability of wife and motherhood keeps one steady. That’s my argument against free love—it’s not final enough, and the uncertainties are too great. I had rather myself have a broken heart and a settled position than a broken heart without one. Perhaps you will succeed in avoiding both. Don’t think I’m morbid—probably my dinner has disagreed with me. By-the-bye, the doctor says there’s something wrong with my lungs—but I don’t believe in doctors. Good-bye. “MARY.” Muriel read Mary Huntly’s letter over slowly with sad eyes. There was a hopeless ring in it, as if the plucky effort to avoid the admission of a life failure had almost proved too much for her. She had attained most things that a woman of the world wishes to attain: a good income, a convenient husband, a boy at Eton, and a fine figure for forty; she was very popular, even with other women, and she had a most capital cook. “Leslie Damores and I are going on a bus top to Kew Gardens this afternoon,” said Cynthia irrelevantly. “And I shall go to tea with him in the studios to see his new picture; he has called it ‘The Years of the Locust.’ I should rather like to see what he has made of it.” Muriel was still puzzling over Mary Huntly’s letter. “She is so fine,” she said. “It must count for something, her pluck and dash and the way she faces things; it can’t be all shallow, or all selfish—and yet it does work death. Look at poor Mary. Her age of primary things has passed. She has run through most of the thrills, as I suppose we all do by forty, and now what’s left for her? She has been keeping yesterday’s manna, and she finds that it has gone bad!” Cynthia looked interested. “I think,” she said slowly, “that a great love is the only thing to fill a woman’s life. I don’t believe that would wear out, would it?”