Then she began to ask about his ideas; she had heard nothing about his “disgrace” at the university, apparently, and he gave her just a hint as to his conviction that there was something wrong with our social order, the world’s distribution of wealth. The nautical maid, leaning back among her silken cushions, replied, “Oh, but that’s all material! And it seems to me we’re too much slaves to material things already; our happiness lies in learning to rise above them.” That was a large question, and Bunny dodged it, and presently Mrs. Norman was talking about herself. Her life was very unhappy. She had married when she was very young, too young to know what she was doing, except obeying her parents. Her husband had been a bad man, he had kept mistresses and treated her cruelly. She had devoted her life to her son, but it all seemed a disappointment, the more you gave to people the more they would take. Charlie was always in love, but he didn’t really know anything about love, he wasn’t capable of unselfishness. What did Bunny think about love? This was another large question; and again Bunny ducked. He said he didn’t know what to think, he saw that people made themselves unhappy, and he was waiting, trying to learn more about the matter. So Mrs. Norman proceeded to tell him more. The dream of love, a really true and great love, never died in the soul of a man or woman; they might become cynical, and say they didn’t believe in it, but they were always unhappy, and secretly hoping and waiting, because really, love was the greatest thing in the world. It made Mrs. Norman happy to know that among this loud and noisy generation there was one young man who was not making himself cheap. The loud and noisy generation came back to the “Siren,” and cut off these intimacies. Charlie’s “mumsie” went below, and when she reappeared, it was in the dining-saloon, with painted panels of Watteau nymphs and shepherds, and seventeenth century ladies reclining to the lascivious pleasing of a lute. The hostess was no longer the nautical maid, but instead a great lady of many charms, a shimmer of pale blue satin, and a gleam of golden hair, and snowy bosom and shoulders, and a double rope of pearls. It was a striking transformation, and Bunny, who had watched Aunt Emma at work, ought to have understood, but his mind had been on other matters.