Perhaps Lady Tilchester's plan of having every sort at her house is the best, after all. Then she can have variety and never be bored. I wonder if it is the occupation of their minds with great things, in this set, which balances with the "lives of compulsion" led by the middle classes, and so prevents them also from "getting back to nature," as the Duke said. It is an interesting problem. Mr. Budge sat down and talked to me. He has a very strong character, I am sure, and I was flattered that he should think me worth speaking to. "I admire your perfect stillness," he said at last, after there had been a pause of a moment or two. "I have never seen a woman sit so still. It is a great quality." "I was not allowed to fidget when I was young," I said. "Perhaps one acquires repose as a habit." "When you were young! Why, you look only a baby now! I would take you for about eighteen years old, and that is what interests me. Your eyes have a question and a story in them that is not usual at eighteen." "Oh, I am ever so much older than that! I must be at least fifty!" I said. He smiled. "I am fifty. It is a terrible age." "I dare say it would be nice to be fifty if one had been long enough young--to get there gradually. But to jump there, that is what is not amusing." "And you have jumped to fifty? I thought there was a story in those Sphinx eyes." "Why do you say that? You are the second person who has said I have the eyes of the Sphinx. I would like to know why?" I asked. "Because they are inscrutable. They suggest much and reveal nothing. It would interest me deeply to hear your impression of things." "What things?" "The world, the flesh, or the devil--anything that would make you lift the curtain a little. For instance, what do you think of this society here now?" "They all seem to be clever people with interests in life." "Most people have interests in life. The candle would soon burn out otherwise. What are yours, if I may ask?" "I am observing. I have not decided yet what interests me. I would like to travel, I think, and see the world." "That is an easy matter at your age. But have you no other desires?" "No, unless it would be to sleep very soundly and enjoy my food." "What a little cynic! A gross little materialist! And you look the embodiment of etherealism." "At fifty I have always understood creature comforts begin to matter more. Each age has its pleasures." He laughed. "Tell me something else about the emotions of the fifty-year-olds."