"The world cannot give me happiness. You find happiness in your own heart, not in worldly possessions.... I am a pessimist. I recognize that life is a miserable thing--not only a miserable thing, but a useless thing. We can do no good; there is no good to be done; and life has no advantage except that we can put it off when we will. Schopenhauer is wrong when he asserts that suicide is no solution of the evil; so far as the individual is concerned suicide is a perfect solution, and were the race to cease to-morrow, nature would instantly choose another type and force it into consciousness. Until this earth resolves itself to ice or cinder, matter will never cease to know itself." "My dear," said Lewis Seymour, who entered the room at that moment, "I am feeling very tired; I think I shall go home, but do not mind me. I will take a hansom--you can have your brougham. You will not mind coming home alone?" "No, I shall not mind. But do you take the brougham. It will be better so. It will save the horse from cold; I'll come back in a hansom." Mike noticed a look of relief or of pleasure on her face, he could not distinguish which. He pressed the conversation on wives, husbands, and lovers, striving to lead her into some confession. At last she said-- "I have had a lover for the last four years." "Really!" said Mike. He hoped his face did not betray his great surprise. This was the first time he had ever heard a lady admit she had had a lover. "We do not often meet; he doesn't live in England. I have not seen him for more than six months." "Do you think he is faithful to you all that time?" "What does it matter whether he is or not? When we meet we love each other just the same." "I have never known a woman like you. You are the only one that has ever interested me. If you had been my mistress or my wife you would have been happier; you would have worked, and in work, not in pleasure, we may cheat life. You would have written your books, I should have written mine." "I don't want you to think I am whining about my lot. I know what the value of life is; I'm not deceived, that is all." "You are unhappy because your present life affords no outlet for your talent. Ah! had you had to fight the battle! How happy it would have made me to fight life with you! I wonder you never thought of leaving your husband, and throwing yourself into the battle of work." "Supposing I wasn't able to make my living. To give up my home would be running too great a risk." "How common all are when you begin to know them," thought Mike. They spoke of the books they had read. She told him of _Le Journal d'Amiel_, explaining the charm that that lamentable record of a narrow, weak mind, whose power lay in an intense consciousness of its own failure, had for her. She spoke savagely, tearing out her soul, and flinging it as it were in Mike's face, frightening him not a little. "I wish I had known Amiel; I think I could have loved him."