"You thought I had contemplated having Clarence myself?" she said, looking at the novelist with a whimsical, amused look. "Well, so I have. I have contemplated a great many things, and not had the courage to do them. I've contemplated going off to Germany, and studying nursing; and going off to France, and studying painting; I've contemplated turning Catholic, and going into a convent. I've contemplated--well--I'm contemplating at present--becoming a _great_ novelist, as you know. I've contemplated marrying poor men, and becoming their amateur charwoman; and I've contemplated marrying rich men, and becoming--well, whatever a penniless woman does become when she marries a rich man; but I've done that once before, and once is enough of any experience in life, at least for a person of philosophic cast of mind, don't you think? I confess I have been contemplating the possibility of marrying Clarence, though I don't see my way to it. You see, it's not exactly a pleasant position to be a widow and not to be one, as I am, in a certain sense. Also, I'm bored with living on my poor husband's money, particularly as I know he wished me to find it as inconvenient as possible to do so. I'm bored with keeping the capital from that wretched boy and his mother, who would get it all as soon as I was safely married again. That's it. As a matter of fact I'm bored with all life, as I daresay most people are; but to marry this particular Clarence, or any other Clarence that may be disporting himself about, wouldn't somehow diminish the boringness of things. Do you see?" "I see," answered Marion. Good Heavens, what a thing it is to be a psychological novelist! and how exactly he had guessed at the reality of Lady Atalanta's character and situation. He would scarcely venture to write that novel of his; he might as well call it _Lady Tal_ at once. It was doubtless this discovery which made him grow suddenly very red and feel an intolerable desire to say he knew not what. They continued walking up and down that little orchard, the brown maize leaves all around, the bright green and vermilion enamel of the pomegranate trees, the Japanese pattern, red and yellow, of the peach branches, against the blue sky above. "My dear Lady Tal," began Marion, "my dear young lady, will you allow--an elderly student of human nature to say--how--I fear it must seem very impertinent--how thoroughly--taking your whole situation as if it were that of a third person--he understanding its difficulties--and, taking the situation no longer quite as that of a third person, how earnestly he hopes that----" Marion was going to say "you will not derogate from the real nobility of your nature." But only a fool could say such a thing; besides, of course, Lady Tal _must_ derogate. So he finished off: "That events will bring some day a perfectly satisfactory, though perhaps unforeseen, conclusion for you."