“More or less.  Of course, it’s impossible to do the thing thoroughly without being absolutely selfish—­a hermit, in fact.  I sometimes think I was intended for a hermit.”

Mary sighed covertly, though the smile still lingered in her brown eyes.

“I’m afraid I only take a kind of sideways view of things.  I should like to—­to——­”

“To go up in a kind of moral balloon,” suggested Rainham laughingly, “and get a bird’s-eye view of life?”

“Exactly; and drift about.  Only then one would never get really interested in anything or anybody.  I should want someone else in the balloon.”

“You must take me,” said Rainham, still smiling.

Mary looked at him quickly, and then turned away, shivering a little.

“What nonsense we are talking!” she said suddenly.  “And I’m afraid it isn’t even original nonsense.  We don’t, really, want to be selfish, and we’re not; you needn’t pretend you are.  And isn’t it getting very, very late?  Don’t you think Mrs. Lightmark looks as if we ought to go?  I don’t mean that she looks inhospitable.  But isn’t she rather pale and tired?  This sort of thing doesn’t seem to suit her as well as her husband.  Yes, I must really go.”

When Miss Masters had deserted him, after extracting a promise that he would take an early opportunity of paying his over-due respects to her aunt, and had gone with Mrs. Lightmark in search of the old lady, Rainham made his adieux, leaving Lightmark still radiant, and protesting hospitably against such early hours; and as he walked homewards, with a cigar unlighted between his lips, he smiled rather bitterly, as he thought how little he was able to adhere to the tenets of his philosophy.  Why else should he regret so much and so often the act which had been rung down when ...  And how many more acts and scenes were there to be?

“Well, I suppose one must stay to the end,” he said finally.  “One isn’t obliged to sit it out, but the audience are requested to keep their seats until the fall of the curtain.  Yes, leaving early disturbs the other spectators.”

While Lady Garnett was being wrapped up with the attention due to her years and dignity, Mary and Eve sat talking in the hall, a square, wainscoted little room, hung with pale grass matting, and decorated brightly with quaint Breton faience and old brass sconces.

“I was so glad to see Philip here to-night,” Mary was saying, while Eve fastened for her the clasp of a refractory bracelet.  “We were afraid he was becoming quite a recluse, and that must be so bad for him!”

“Almost as bad as too much society.”

“Yes; it’s only another form of dissipation.”

“I’m not sure that it isn’t better to have too much of other people’s society than too much of one’s own.”

“I don’t think I ever regarded him from a—­a society point of view.  You know what I mean—­like Colonel Lightmark, for instance.  When I was a child I always thought of him as a sort of fairy godmother—­a person who was always dropping from the clouds to take one for drives in the country, or with a box for the pantomime.”