‘I wonder,’ continued her son, ‘whether everybody feels alike. More or less, I suppose--although everyone thinks that he has the secret all to himself.’ ‘Love is sent, sooner or later, to everyone,’ replied Lady Adela. ‘But how do people know that it is the right love?’ questioned Kingston. Then he went on, without waiting for the irrelevant answer which his mother would surely provide. ‘Uncertainty is a deadly thing. And the worst of it is that everyone who really wants to find happiness must always be uncertain as to the way. Only those who don’t care can ever be perfectly, securely certain.’ ‘True love is always unmistakable,’ replied his mother, who, in her time, had married the late James Dadd from a feeling that anything would be preferable to prolonged existence with Lady Kirk-Hammerton. ‘Yes; but it must have different manifestations. I remember when Tom Clifford was engaged to that Menzies girl he couldn’t bear her out of his sight, never let any other man have half a dozen words with her. Now, I don’t mind who Gundred talks to, or what she says--not a scrap. And--well, it’s always a joy to see her, of course--everyone must feel that--but I haven’t any wish to go about all day at the end of her hat-ribbon. Is that because I am cold-blooded, or is it the proper normal thing to feel?’ ‘My dear boy is so full of chivalry,’ answered Lady Adela with affectionate vagueness. ‘No nice girl would like to be too much monopolized. It is hardly delicate.’ ‘One had a sort of notion,’ continued Kingston, unregarding, ‘that love-making was more of a desperate flesh-and-blood affair. I suppose the real thing is more ethereal than the everlasting philanderings that one reads about. Heaven knows, they are earthly enough.’ ‘Marriages are made in heaven,’ replied his mother reverentially. ‘And love is made on earth, I gather--at least, love of the novelist’s sort. Certainly marriage is happier in every way--calmer, less discomposing, more orderly and decent and--and--abstract, as it were. I cannot imagine anyone not loving Gundred. She appeals to everything that is best in one. And the crowning mercy of it all is that she never gives one thrills of any kind, never rouses any primitive, prosaic emotions. She is always just what one expects--gentle and charming and satisfactory--and nothing else. There is no intoxication about her. And, really, you know, that is a relief. One had imagined that love--love in the completest sense--was a kind of celestial drunkenness. It is a tremendous relief to find that it is only a quiet temperance drink after all--the Water of Life, as it were. I don’t think either my head or my stomach care very much for intoxicants.’ ‘Your dear father was just the same,’ replied Lady Adela calmly; ‘two glasses of port never failed to upset him. Some people’s interiors are so sensitive. If one is in the least troubled that way, it is far better never to touch stimulants. Or peppermint, they say, does wonders.’