"I hope it was nothing very serious," he said. "It was serious enough for me," she replied. "Nobody else was hurt, but it was serious enough for me--the mere knowing that for a few minutes I had lost my hold on myself. I didn't like it--I didn't like it!" There was an intensity in her manner, in her voice, in her face, in her very figure itself, which was curiously disproportionate to her words. She leaned forward a little, and laid her small, clenched hand upon her knee. "In all my life," she said, slowly,--"in all my life, I have never had a feeling which was as strong as myself. I have been that fortunate. I have been angry, but never so angry that I could not seem perfectly still and calm; I have been happy, but never so happy that I could not have hidden it if I chose; I have been unhappy--for a moment or so--but never so unhappy that I had the horrible anguish of being found out. I am not capable of strong, real emotions, I am too shallow and--and light. I have been light all my life, and I _will_ be light until the end. "Only the children could make me suffer, really," she said after it,--"only the children, and all women are like that. Through Janey, or Jack, or Meg, my heart could be torn in two, if they were in pain, or badly treated, or taken from me,--that is nothing but common nature; but nothing else could hurt me so that I should cry out--nothing and nobody--not even Richard!" She stopped herself, and opened her fan again. "There!" she exclaimed. "Why did I say so much then, and say it so vehemently, as if it was of consequence? Nothing is of consequence--nothing, nothing!" And she laughed, and rose and began to take up and set down again some trifles on the mantel. Arbuthnot still watched her. "No," he said, "you are quite right; nothing is of consequence really, and the sooner one learns that, the better for one's peace of mind. The worst pain you could have to bear could not last you more than a few score years, and you would get used to it in that time; the greatest happiness you could yearn for would not last any longer, and you would get tired of it in time, too." "Tired of it!" she echoed. "One could tire of anything in threescore years and ten. How tired one must be of one's self before it is over--how tired! how tired!" and she threw up her hands in a sudden, desperate gesture. "No," he answered, in a tone whose level coolness was a forcible contrast to her own. "Not necessarily, if one doesn't expect too much. If we take things for what they are worth, and don't let ourselves be deceived by them, there is plenty of rational entertainment to be had by the way. We mayn't like it quite as well as what we set out with expecting, but we can manage to subsist upon it. I hope I am logical. I know I am not eloquent." He said it bitterly.