While we talked thus, sitting on a seat that overlooked the great city—­I had never seen it look so stately and beautiful, so full of all that the heart could desire—­Lucius himself drew near to us, smiling, and seated himself the other side of Cynthia.  “Now is not this heavenly?” she said; “to be with the two people I like best—­for you are a faithful old thing, you know—­and not to be afraid of anything disagreeable or tiresome happening—­not to have to explain or make excuses, what could be better?”

“Yes,” said Lucius, “it is happy enough,” and he smiled at me in a friendly way.  “The pleasantest point is that one can wait in this charming place.  In the old days, one was afraid of a hundred things—­money, weather, illness, criticism.  One had to make love in a hurry, because one missed the beautiful hour; and then there was the horror of growing old.  But now if Cynthia chooses to amuse herself with other people, what do I care?  She comes back as delightful as ever, and it is only so much more to be amused about.  One is not even afraid of being lazy, and as for those ugly twinges of what one called conscience—­which were only a sort of rheumatism after all—­that is all gone too; and the delight of finding that one was right after all, and that there were really no such things as consequences!”

I became aware, as Lucius spoke thus, in all his careless beauty, of a vague trouble of soul.  I seemed to foresee a kind of conflict between myself and him.  He felt it too, I was aware; for he drew Cynthia to him, and said something to her; and presently they went off laughing, like a pair of children, waving a farewell to me.  I experienced a sense of desolation, knowing in my mind that all was not well, and yet feeling so powerless to contend with happiness so strong and wide.

XII

Presently I wandered off alone, and went out of the city with a sudden impulse.  I thought I would go in the opposite direction to that by which I had entered it.  I could see the great hills down which Cynthia and I had made our way in the dawn; but I had never gone in the further direction, where there stretched what seemed to be a great forest.  The whole place lay bathed in a calm light, all unutterably beautiful.  I wandered long by streams and wood-ends, every corner that I turned revealing new prospects of delight.  I came at last to the edge of the forest, the mouths of little open glades running up into it, with fern and thorn-thickets.  There were deer here browsing about the dingles, which let me come close to them and touch them, raising their heads from the grass, and regarding me with gentle and fearless eyes.  Birds sang softly among the boughs, and even fluttered to my shoulder, as if pleased to be noticed.  So this was what was called on earth the place of torment, a place into which it seemed as if nothing of sorrow or pain could ever intrude!