Mr. Cardan talking all the way, they passed the silhouettes of modest Venus, of Diana and her attendant dog, of Hercules leaning on his club and Atlas bending under the weight of his globe, of Bacchus lifting to heaven the stump of a broken arm whose hand had once held the wine cup. Arrived at the end of the terrace, they turned and walked back again past the same row of symbols. “It’s easy to talk like that,” said Mrs. Aldwinkle, when he had finished. “But it doesn’t make any difference to the grandeur of passion, to its purity and beauty and....” She faded out breathlessly. “Wasn’t it Bossuet,” asked Irene timidly, but with determination, for she felt that she owed it to Aunt Lilian to intervene; and besides, Aunt Lilian liked her to take part in the conversation, “wasn’t it Bossuet who said that there was something of the Infinite in passion?” “Splendid, Irene,” Mr. Cardan cried encouragingly. Irene blushed in the concealing darkness. “But I think Bossuet’s quite right,” she declared. She could become a lioness, in spite of her blushes, when it was a question of supporting Aunt Lilian. “I think he’s absolutely right,” she confirmed, after a moment of recollection, out of her own experience. She herself had felt most infinitely, more than once—for Irene had run through a surprising number of passions in her time. “I can’t think,” her Aunt Lilian used to say to her, when Irene came in evenings to brush her hair before she went to bed, “I can’t think how it is that you’re not wildly in love with Peter—or Jacques—or Mario.” (The name might change as Mrs. Aldwinkle and her niece moved in their seasonal wanderings, backwards and forwards across the map of Europe; but, after all, what’s in a name?) “If I were your age I should be quite bowled over by him.” And thinking more seriously now of Peter, or Jacques, or Mario, Irene would discover that Aunt Lilian was quite right; the young man was indeed a very remarkable young man. And for the remainder of their stay at the Continental, the Bristol, the Savoia, she would be in love—passionately. What she had felt on these occasions was decidedly infinite. Bossuet, there was no doubt of it, knew what he was talking about. “Well, if _you_ think he’s right, Irene,” said Mr. Cardan, “why then, there’s nothing for me to do but retire from the argument. I bow before superior authority.” He took the cigar out of his mouth and bowed. Irene felt herself blushing once more. “Now you’re making fun of me,” she said. Mrs. Aldwinkle put her arm protectively round the young girl’s shoulders. “I won’t let you tease her, Cardan,” she said. “She’s the only one of you all who has a real feeling for what is noble and fine and grand.” She drew Irene closer to her, pressed her in a sidelong and peripatetic embrace. Happily, devotedly, Irene abandoned herself. Aunt Lilian was wonderful! “Oh, I know,” said Mr. Cardan apologetically, “that I’m nothing but an old capripede.”