“Most of us are,” I said, “when we are at home. Carlyle was the average man in the little front parlour in Cheyne Row, though, to hear fools talk, you might think no married couple outside literary circles had ever been known to exchange a cross look. So was Oliver Cromwell in his own palace with the door shut. Mrs. Cromwell must have thought him monstrous silly, placing sticky sweetmeats for his guests to sit on—told him so, most likely. A cheery, kindly man, notwithstanding, though given to moods. He and Mrs. Cromwell seem to have rubbed along, on the whole, pretty well together. Old Sam Johnson—great, God-fearing, lovable, cantankerous old brute! Life with him, in a small house on a limited income, must have had its ups and downs. Milton and Frederick the Great were, one hopes, a little below the average. Did their best, no doubt; lacked understanding. Not so easy as it looks, living up to the standard of the average man. Very clever people, in particular, find it tiring.” “I shall never marry,” said Robina. “At least, I hope I sha’n’t.” “Why ‘hope’?” I asked. “Because I hope I shall never be idiot enough,” she answered. “I see it all so clearly. I wish I didn’t. Love! it’s only an ugly thing with a pretty name. It will not be me that he will fall in love with. He will not know me until it is too late. How can he? It will be merely with the outside of me—my pink-and-white skin, my rounded arms. I feel it sometimes when I see men looking at me, and it makes me mad. And at other times the admiration in their eyes pleases me. And that makes me madder still.” The moon had slipped behind the wood. She had risen, and, leaning against the porch, was standing with her hands clasped. I fancy she had forgotten me. She seemed to be talking to the night. “It’s only a trick of Nature to make fools of us,” she said. “He will tell me I am all the world to him; that his love will outlive the stars—will believe it himself at the time, poor fellow! He will call me a hundred pretty names, will kiss my feet and hands. And if I’m fool enough to listen to him, it may last”—she laughed; it was rather an ugly laugh—“six months; with luck perhaps a year, if I’m careful not to go out in the east wind and come home with a red nose, and never let him catch me in curl papers. It will not be me that he will want: only my youth, and the novelty of me, and the mystery. And when that is gone—” She turned to me. It was a strange face I saw then in the pale light, quite a fierce little face. She laid her hands upon my shoulders, and I felt them cold. “What comes when it is dead?” she said. “What follows? You must know. Tell me. I want the truth.” Her vehemence had arisen so suddenly. The little girl I had set out to talk with was no longer there. To my bewilderment, it was a woman that was questioning me. I drew her down beside me. But the childish face was still stern.