"Well," she retorted, "and what did you expect? Aren't we in London? That is the only subject here. No matter how a conversation between a man and woman begins, it is bound, sooner or later, to reach some one else's domestic complications. As for me, I love it. One may talk books and plays and pictures and travel now and then, but the only real interest is other people--their hearts or their want of heart, their follies and their pockets." "Much better," I replied, "have some interest in your own heart." "Not I," she answered firmly. "That would be too serious." On the doorstep whom should I meet but Mr. Dollie Heathcote, a picture of cool tailoring, carrying a bouquet. For the first time in our acquaintance, his expression of perfect contentment and serenity was dimmed by a passing cloud. "What ho!" he said. "What ho!" I replied. "I thought you were at Cromer." "You would not have me remain idle and frivolous on the East Coast," he said, "while the funeral of my aunt is in progress in the metropolis?" "Certainly not," I answered. He still looked the least bit abashed. "It's all right," I said, perceiving his thought, "I shan't mention it. For some time now I have entirely given up the habit of remembering that I ever saw any one anywhere." He laughed quite comfortably again. "Pip, pip!" he said, and disappeared up the stairs. So Dollie was among the suitors! A very good thing, too. I walked home rather thoughtfully by way of the Green Park and St. James's Park. It was a golden afternoon, and there were many lovers, and their happiness made me happy and made me sad. What would have been the result, I wondered, if steady happiness had been set on the throne of this world instead of uncertainty and change and disappointment? How would life have developed had we been born happy and well, and lived happily, and loved happily, and then, when our days were fulfilled, had suddenly died happily? Would it have harmed the race? Have misfortune and disease and frustration and insecurity been necessary to man's ingenuity and industry? Without sorrow should we have had no telegraph? without tears, no camera? Have all the benefits of civilisation been wrung from us in some effort to escape from the blows of fate? And even if so, might not happiness, without the advantages of progress, have still been better? I stood on the bridge and watched the birds for a long while. They too had been in love, and would be again next spring, most of them, and it was just as real to them as to the youths and maidens on the seats and in the boats, and--to me? To me. I walked home in a brown study.