"You've so nearly reached the point at which a man has the right to approach a woman," Sylvia said, "that if you're asking my advice, I advise you to wait until you do actually reach that point. Of course you may lose her by waiting. She may marry somebody else." "Oh, I know; I've thought of that. In a way that would be a solution." "So long as you regard her marriage with somebody else as a solution, you're still some way from the point. It's curious she should be a ballet-girl, because Mrs. Gainsborough, you know, was a ballet-girl. In 1869, when she took her emotional plunge, she was able to exchange the wings of Covent Garden for the wings of love easily enough. In 1869 ballet-girls never thought of marrying what were and are called 'gentlemen.' I think Mrs. Gainsborough would consider her life a success; she was not too much married to spoil love, and the captain was certainly more devoted to her than most husbands would have been. The proof that her life was a success is that she has remained young. Yet if I introduce you to her you'll see at once your own Jenny at sixty like her--that won't be at all a hard feat of imagination. But you'll still be seeing yourself at twenty-five or whatever you are; you'll never be able to see yourself at sixty; therefore I sha'n't introduce you. I'm too much of a woman not to hope with all my heart that you'll go home to England, marry your Jenny, and live happily ever afterward, and I think you'd better not meet Mrs. Gainsborough, in case she prejudices your resolve. Thanks for giving me your confidence." "Oh no! Thank _you_ for listening," said Avery. "I'm glad you're not going to develop her. I once suffered from that kind of vivisection myself, though I never had a cockney accent. Some souls can't stand straight lacing, just as some bodies revolt from stays. And so Michael is in a monastery? I suppose that means all his soul spasms are finally allayed?" "O Lord! No!" said Avery. "He's in the very middle of them." "What I really meant to say was heart palpitations." "I don't think, really," said Avery, "that Michael ever had them." "What was Lily, then?" "Oh, essentially a soul spasm," he declared. "Yes, I suppose it was," Sylvia agreed, pensively. "I think, you know, I must meet Mrs. Gainsborough," said Avery. "Fate answers for you. Here she comes." Don Alfonso, with the pain that every dog and dragoman feels in the separation of his charges, had taken advantage of Sylvia's talk with Avery to bring Mrs. Gainsborough triumphantly back to the fold. "Here we are again," said Mrs. Gainsborough, limping down the path. "And my behind looks like a magic lantern. Oh, I beg your pardon! I didn't see you'd met a friend. So that's what Alfonso was trying to tell me. He's been going like an alarm-clock all the way here. Pleased to meet you, I'm sure. How do you like Morocco? We got shut out last night." "This is a friend of Michael Fane's," said Sylvia.