"But the present so soon becomes the past, doesn't it? There's never more than just a minute of the present, really, if you come to look at it in that way, all the rest is past and future." "Never mind," said Mr. Barrymore. "You've got more future than any of the party." "And poor Maida has less." He forgot about his old steering-wheel for part of a second, and gave me such a glance that I knew I had him on my hook this time. "Why do you say that?" he asked, quite sharply. "Oh, you _are_ interested in somebody's future beside your own then?" "Who could help being--in hers?" "You look as if you thought I meant she was dying of a decline," said I. "It isn't quite as bad as that, but--well, beautiful as Maida is I wouldn't change places with her, unless I could change souls as well. It would be a good deal better for Maida in _this_ world if she could have mine, though just the opposite in the next." "Such talk clouds the sunshine," said Mr. Barrymore, "even for a stranger like me, when you prophesy gloomy mysteries for one who deserves only happiness. You said something of the sort to Moray yesterday. He told me, but I was in hope that you had been joking." "No," said I. "But I suppose Maida doesn't think the mysteries gloomy, or she wouldn't 'embrace' them--if that's the right word for it. Mamma and I imagined that coming to Europe would make her see differently perhaps, but it hadn't the last time I asked her. She thought Paris lots of fun, but all the same she was homesick for the stupid old convent where she was brought up, and which she is going to let _swallow_ her up in a year." "Good Heavens, how terrible!" exclaimed our chauffeur, looking tragically handsome. "Can nothing be done to save her? Couldn't you and your mother induce her to change her mind?" "We've tried," said I. "She saw a lot of society in Paris and when we were at Cap Martin, but it gave her the sensation of having made a whole meal on candy. Mamma has the idea of being presented to your Queen Alexandra next spring, if she can manage it, and she told Maida that, if she'd tack on a little piece to her year of travel, _she_ might be done too, at the same time. But Maida didn't seem to care particularly about it; and the society novels that Mamma loves don't interest her a bit. Her favourite authors are Shakspere and Thomas Hardy, and she reads Cooper and Sir Walter Scott. So what _can_ you do with a girl like that?" "There are other things in life besides society." "Mamma doesn't think so. I guess we've both done all we can. I'm afraid poor Maida's doomed. But there's one comfort; she'll look perfectly beautiful in the white robe and veil that her Sisterhood wears." Mr. Barrymore gave a sort of groan. "What a vocation for a girl like that!" he muttered, more to himself than to me, I imagine. "Something desperate ought to be done." "_You_ might try to influence her," I said. "Not that I think it's likely you _could_. But there's no harm in trying."