“I hate slang,” she said, when he had painted the situation black enough to suit Mrs. Bartlett Glow even, “and I will not give my sex away, but I know something of feminine doubtings and subterfuges, and I give you my judgment that Irene is just fretting herself to death, and praying that you may have the spirit to ride rough-shod over her scruples. Yes, it is just as true in this prosaic time as it ever was, that women like to be carried off by violence. In their secret hearts, whatever they may say, they like to see a knight batter down the tower and put all the garrison except themselves to the sword. I know that I ought to be on Mrs. Glow's side. It is the sensible side, the prudent side; but I do admire recklessness in love. Probably you'll be uncomfortable, perhaps unhappy--you are certain to be if you marry to please society and not yourself--but better a thousand times one wild rush of real passion, of self-forgetting love, than an age of stupid, conventional affection approved by your aunt. Oh, these calculating young people!” Mrs. Farquhar's voice trembled and her eyes flashed. “I tell you, my friend, life is not worth living in a conventional stagnation. You see in society how nature revenges itself when its instincts are repressed.” Mrs. Farquhar turned away, and King saw that her eyes were full of tears. She stood a moment looking away over the sparkling water to the soft islands on the hazy horizon. Was she thinking of her own marriage? Death had years ago dissolved it, and were these tears, not those of mourning, but for the great experience possible in life, so seldom realized, missed forever? Before King could frame, in the tumult of his own thoughts, any reply, she turned towards him again, with her usual smile, half of badinage and half of tenderness, and said: “Come, this is enough of tragedy for one day; let us go on the Island Wanderer, with the other excursionists, among the isles of the blest.”