In spite of my remonstrances, he told her about the book, and her first remark was: "Oh, do let me see it!" She had no "proper feeling" of any kind. Then she said: "But why do you both look so sad?" "We are awaiting Mr. Worters' decision," said I. "Mr. Inskip! What nonsense! Do you suppose Harcourt'll be angry?" "Of course he is angry, and rightly so." "But why?" "Ford has laughed at him." "But what's that!" And for the first time there was anger in her voice. "Do you mean to say he'll punish some one who laughs at him? Why, for what else--for whatever reason are we all here? Not to laugh at each other! I laugh at people all day. At Mr. Ford. At you. And so does Harcourt. Oh, you've misjudged him! He won't--he couldn't be angry with people who laughed." "Mine is not nice laughter," said Ford. "He could not well forgive me." "You're a silly boy." She sneered at him. "You don't know Harcourt. So generous in every way. Why, he'd be as furious as I should be if you apologized. Mr. Inskip, isn't that so?" "He has every right to an apology, I think." "Right? What's a right? You use too many new words. 'Rights'--'apologies'--'society'--'position'--I don't follow it. What are we all here for, anyhow?" Her discourse was full of trembling lights and shadows--frivolous one moment, the next moment asking why Humanity is here. I did not take the Moral Science Tripos, so I could not tell her. "One thing I know--and that is that Harcourt isn't as stupid as you two. He soars above conventions. He doesn't care about 'rights' and 'apologies.' He knows that all laughter is nice, and that the other nice things are money and the soul and so on." The soul and so on! I wonder that Harcourt out in the meadows did not have an apoplectic fit. "Why, what a poor business your life would be," she continued, "if you all kept taking offence and apologizing! Forty million people in England and all of them touchy! How one would laugh if it was true! Just imagine!" And she did laugh. "Look at Harcourt though. He knows better. He isn't petty like that. Mr. Ford! He isn't petty like that. Why, what's wrong with your eyes?" He rested his head on his knees again, and we could see his eyes no longer. In dispassionate tones she informed me that she thought he was crying. Then she tapped him on the hair with her mallet and said: "Cry-baby! Cry-cry-baby! Crying about nothing!" and ran laughing down the steps. "All right!" she shouted from the lawn. "Tell the cry-baby to stop. I'm going to speak to Harcourt!" We watched her go in silence. Ford had scarcely been crying. His eyes had only become large and angry. He used such swear-words as he knew, and then got up abruptly, and went into the house. I think he could not bear to see her disillusioned. I had no such tenderness, and it was with considerable interest that I watched Miss Beaumont approach her lord.