This being a statement I was not prepared to contest, I waved it aside. "And so," said I, "they laughed; and agreed it was a boy-and-girl affair; and were friends." "It was the best thing--" said she. "Yes," I assented,--"for Orlando." "--and it was the most sensible thing." "Oh, eminently!" This seemed to exhaust the subject, and I lay down once more among the pine-needles. "And that," said Rosalind, "was the reason Jaques came to Arden?" "Yes," said I. "And found it--?" "Shall we say--Hades?" "Oh!" she murmured, scandalised. "It happened," I continued, "that he was cursed with a good memory. And the zest was gone from his little successes and failures, now there was no one to share them; and nothing seemed to matter very much. Oh, he really was the sort of man that never grows up! And it was dreary to live among memories of the past, and his life was now somewhat perturbed by disapproval of his own folly and by hunger for a woman who was out of his reach." "And Rosalind--I mean the girl--?" "She married Orlando--or Gamelyn, or Alfred, or Athelstane, or Ethelred, or somebody,--and, whoever it was, they lived happily ever afterward," I said, morosely. Rosalind pondered over this denouement for a moment. "Do you know," said she, "I think--" "It's a rather dangerous practice," I warned her. Rosalind sighed, wearily; but in her cheek at about this time occurred a dimple. "--I think that Rosalind must have thought the play very badly named." "_As You Like It_?" I queried, obtusely. "Yes--since it wasn't, for her." It is unwholesome to lie on the ground after sunset. 4 "I had rather a scene with Alfred yesterday morning. He said you drank, and gambled, and were always running after--people, and weren't in fine, a desirable person for me to know. He insinuated, in fact, that you were a villain of the very deepest and non-crocking dye. He told me of instances. His performance would have done credit to Ananias. I was _mad_! So I gave him his old ring back, and told him things I can't tell _you_,--no, not just yet, dear. He is rather like a muffin, isn't he?" she said, with the lightest possible little laugh--"particularly like one that isn't quite done." "Oh, Rosalind," I babbled, "I mean to prove that you were right. And I _will_ prove it, too!" And indeed I meant all that I said--just then. Rosalind said: "Oh, Jaques, Jaques! what a child you are!" 19. _He Plays the Improvident Fool_ Now was I come near to the summit of my desires, and advantageously betrothed to a girl with whom I was, in any event, almost in love; but I presently ascertained, to my dismay, that sophisticated, "proper" little Rosalind was thoroughly in love with me, and always in the back of my mind this knowledge worried me.