“Yes, she likes me,” he serenely admitted. Again his hostess hesitated. “And I hope you like her.” “Aye, 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 had in fact rested largely on his probably finding felicity in a deep indifference to the character. “I don’t know that there’s any one in the world I envy so much,” she observed; a statement that her visitor received in silence. “Better than any one I’ve 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’ve ever known. She has merged herself in the passion of doing something for others. That’s why I envy her,” she concluded 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 discussing. The Princess wondered why he should wish to argue at Lady Aurora’s expense. “Well, one who’s very near to you, to begin with.” “Oh she’s kind, most kind; it’s altogether wonderful. But Rosy makes _her_ considerably less wretched,” Muniment added. “Very likely, of course; and so she does me.” “May I inquire what you’re wretched about?” he went on. “About nothing at all. That’s the worst of it. But I’m much happier now than I’ve ever been.” “Is that also about nothing?” “No, about a sort of change that has taken place in my life. I’ve been able to do some little things.” “For the poor, I suppose you mean. Do you refer to the presents you’ve made to Rosy?” the young man asked. “The presents?” She 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 and drive it harder than any she had seen. “Having them’s nothing. It’s the acting on them,” the Princess replied. “Yes; that doubtless too is good.” He continued to look at her patiently, 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’s 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.” “It’s more your sister, I suspect, than I. But why, after all, should you have disliked so much to come?”