'Yes. Only the fool and the very young expect happiness. The wise merely hope to be interested, at least not to be bored, in their passage through this world. Nothing is so interesting as love and grief, and the one involves the other. Ah! would I not do the same again!' He spoke gravely, wistfully, and vehemently, as if employing the last spark of divine fire that was left in his decrepit frame. This undaunted confession of a faith which had survived twenty years of inactive meditation, this banner waved by an expiring arm in the face of the eternity that mocks at the transience of human things, filled me with admiration. My eyes moistened, but I continued to look up at him. 'What is the title of the new book?' he demanded casually, sinking into a chair. '_Burning Sappho_,' I answered. 'But the title is very misleading.' 'Bright star!' he exclaimed, taking my hand. 'With such a title you will surely beat the record of the Good Dame.' 'Hsh!' I enjoined him. Jocelyn Sardis was coming towards us. The Good Dame was the sobriquet which Lord Francis had invented to conceal--or to display--his courteous disdain of the ideals represented by Mrs. Sardis, that pillar long established, that stately dowager, that impeccable _doyenne_ of serious English fiction. Mrs. Sardis had captured two continents. Her novels, dealing with all the profound problems of the age, were read by philosophers and politicians, and one of them had reached a circulation of a quarter of a million copies. Her dignified and indefatigable pen furnished her with an income of fifteen thousand pounds a year. Jocelyn Sardis was just entering her mother's world, and she had apparently not yet recovered from the surprise of the discovery that she was a woman; a simple and lovable young creature with brains amply sufficient for the making of apple-pies. As she greeted Lord Francis in her clear, innocent voice, I wondered sadly why her mother should be so anxious to embroider the work of Nature. I thought if Jocelyn could just be left alone to fall in love with some average, kindly stockbroker, how much more nearly the eternal purpose might be fulfilled.... 'Yes, I remember,' Lord Francis was saying. 'It was at St. Malo. And what did you think of the Breton peasant?' 'Oh,' said Jocelyn, 'mamma has not yet allowed us to study the condition of the lower classes in France. We are all so busy with the new Settlement.' 'It must be very exhausting, my dear child,' said Lord Francis. I rose. 'I came to ask you to play something,' the child appealed to me. 'I have never heard you play, and everyone says--' 'Jocelyn, my pet,' the precise, prim utterance of Mrs. Sardis floated across the room. 'What, mamma?' 'You are not to trouble Miss Peel. Perhaps she does not feel equal to playing.'