“Oh, she doesn’t know much about me!” the young man exclaimed. “It’s a pity you say that, because she likes you.” “Yes, she likes me,” Muniment replied, serenely. Again the Princess hesitated. “And I hope you like her.” “Ay, she’s a dear old girl!” The Princess reflected that her visitor was not a gentleman, like Hyacinth; but this made no difference in her present attitude. The expectation that he would be a gentleman had had nothing to do with her interest in him; that, in fact, had rested largely on the supposition that he had a rich plebeian strain. “I don’t know that there is any one in the world I envy so much,” she remarked; an observation which her visitor received in silence. “Better than any one I have ever met she has solved the problem—which, if we are wise, we all try to solve, don’t we?—of getting out of herself. She has got out of herself more perfectly than any one I have ever known. She has merged herself in the passion of doing something for others. That’s why I envy her,” said the Princess, with an explanatory smile, as if perhaps he didn’t understand her. “It’s an amusement, like any other,” said Paul Muniment. “Ah, not like any other! It carries light into dark places; it makes a great many wretched people considerably less wretched.” “How many, eh?” asked the young man, not exactly as if he wished to dispute, but as if it were always in him to enjoy an argument. The Princess wondered why he should desire to argue at Lady Aurora’s expense. “Well, one who is very near to you, to begin with.” “Oh, she’s kind, most kind; it’s altogether wonderful. But Rosy makes _her_ considerably less wretched,” Paul Muniment rejoined. “Very likely, of course; and so she does me.” “May I inquire what you are wretched about?” Muniment went on. “About nothing at all. That’s the worst of it. But I am much happier now than I have ever been.” “Is that also about nothing?” “No, about a sort of change that has taken place in my life. I have been able to do some little things.” “For the poor, I suppose you mean. Do you refer to the presents you have made to Rosy?” the young man inquired. “The presents?” The Princess appeared not to remember. “Oh, those are trifles. It isn’t anything one has been able to give; it’s some talks one has had, some convictions one has arrived at.” “Convictions are a source of very innocent pleasure,” said the young man, smiling at his interlocutress with his bold, pleasant eyes, which seemed to project their glance further than any she had seen. “Having them is nothing. It’s the acting on them,” the Princess replied. “Yes; that doubtless, too, is good.” He continued to look at her peacefully, as if he liked to consider that this might be what she had asked him to come for. He said nothing more, and she went on— “It’s far better, of course, when one is a man.” “I don’t know. Women do pretty well what they like. My sister and you have managed, between you, to bring me to this.”