“Not that she isn’t very much admired. She knows hundreds of nice men, and I’m sure heaps of them want to marry her; but, no. She likes them as friends. As a husband she wants something more. The modern man is so material and unintellectual, don’t you think so?” This Diana (with a touch of Minerva) among widows came up, swinging the little bag of which she had gone in search. “I’m sure Lady Louisa has been talking about me,” she laughed. “She has not been taking away your character. I assure you,” said Quixtus. “I know. She has been giving me one. And the worst of it is, I have to live up to it—or at least try. I suppose it’s always worth while having an ideal before one, though it may be somebody else’s.” “You believe in an ideal of goodness?” asked Quixtus. She raised her dreamy eyes to his and looked at him candidly. “Why, yes, don’t you?” “No,” he replied, with a darkening brow. “There is only one force in nature, which is wickedness. Man sometimes resists it for fear of the consequences, and the measure of his cowardly resistance is by a curious inversion taken by him to be the measure of his striving towards an ideal.” Mrs. Fontaine exclaimed warmly; “I must cure you of your pessimism.” “There is only one remedy.” “And that?” “The same as will cure the disease of life.” “You mean death?” “Yes,” said Quixtus. “It’s a remedy; but not the only one.” Her pale cheeks flushed adorably. “In fact, it’s only by a twist of language you can call it a remedy. The only remedy against the malady of life is life itself. The bane is its own antidote. The only cure for loss of illusions is fresh illusions, more illusions, and always illusions.” “Supposing for argument’s sake you are right—where are they to come from?” “They form of themselves, like fresh tissue of the flesh, without your volition.” “Only in healthy flesh,” said Quixtus, with his tired smile. “So in a gangrened soul there can be built up no fresh tissue of illusions.” Womanlike, she begged the question, maintaining that there was no such thing as a gangrened soul. She shuddered prettily. Belief therein was a horrible superstition. She proclaimed her faith in the ultimate good of things. Quixtus said ironically: