As I was sitting there Lacey came up and joined me. "You look blue," he said--"so am I. It's that infernally beautiful sunset that's done it. Not for nothing did Dürer give his 'Melancholia' the setting sun. What's the matter? Have you suddenly discovered that your nose is out of joint?" (What an instinct the fellow has!) "Every baby puts someone's nose out of joint; either its father's or mother's or another baby's. But that's all right. That's part of the fun. Life is nothing but readjusting. Lovers are always becoming parents. There's no sense in the world, only movement; but luckily we all have our moments off, and the thing is to get as many of them as possible. That's the principal reason why brewers and distillers are so rich and noble, and why old Furley's films do so well. Anodynes, don't you see; devices for cheating facts. Take me into the Zoo with your powerful autograph and we'll soon forget our troubles. There's a little kinkajou on the right as we go in, with a tail like a boa, who hangs round your neck and drives all griefs away. I dare say, if we only knew, there's a wild animal for every mental malady." We went in and strolled about for a while: bewaring of pickpockets, according to instructions. "As a matter of fact," said Lacey, as we sat down in the little pavilion reserved for Fellows and ordered something to drink, "I am miserable too. But then that's about all I expect. I've made such a mess of things. Never mind how, but I have. I get too fond of too many people. Anyway, I called on an old flame of mine to-day who is married--happily married--and it hurt. I ought to have married her myself, but things went wrong. I understood her and she understood me, but we had no luck. At least perhaps she did. We fenced a good deal to-day, of course. It was the only thing to do. She asked me that inevitable question, What I was doing with my life and going to do? When a happily married woman asks this it means only one thing: it means, When are you going to be happily married too? I said I had no reason to admire marriage sufficiently to think of nothing else. "'But love?' she asked. "I admitted that love was all right, and was silent in the idiotic way that one is, at intervals, during such meetings. "'Well?' she asked after a while. "'I have nothing to report,' I replied. Nor had I, Heaven knows; yet I should not have mentioned it, even if I had. There is no pleasure in confessing to those who belong to another. She was still charming and beautiful and sympathetic; but sympathy when one comes second is a very different thing from sympathy when one might possibly come first. And then I left the house and, of course, for a while I saw nothing but pretty girls on young fellows' arms, as one always does when one's most lonely and miserable; and then I walked bang into that blighting sunset and then into you." He said nothing for a while and we watched the passers-by.