He gave her his arm, assuring himself that if she didn’t care for him there were hundreds who did.  Lady Helen was one of the handsomest women in London, and he fancied she was thinking of him.  And when he returned he stood at the door watching her as she leaned over the mantelpiece reading a letter.  She did not put it away at once, but continued reading and playing with the letter as one might with something conclusive and important.  She took no precaution against his seeing it, and he noticed that it was in a man’s handwriting, and began Ma chere amie.  The room was now empty, and the clatter of knives and forks drowned the strains of a waltz.

“You seemed to be very much occupied with that young person.  She is very pretty.  I advise you to take care.”

“I don’t want to marry.  I shall never marry.  Did you think I was in love with Miss Young?”

“Well, it looked rather like it.”

“No; I swear you are mistaken.  I say, if you don’t care about dancing we’ll sit down and talk.  So you thought I was in love with Miss Young?  How could I be in love with her while you are in the room?  You know, you must have seen, that I have only eyes for you.  The last time I was in Paris I went to see you in the Louvre.”

“You say I am like Jean Gougon’s statue.”

“I think so, so far as a pair of stays allows me to judge.”

Lady Helen laughed, but there was no pleasure in her laugh; it was a hard, bitter laugh.

“If only you knew how indifferent I am!  What does it matter whether I am like the statue or not?  I am indifferent to everything.”

“But I admire you because you are like the statue.”

“What does it matter to me whether you admire me or not?  I don’t care.”

He had not asked her for the dance; she had sought him of her free-will.  What did it mean?

“Why should I care?  What is it to me whether you like me or whether you hate me?  I know very well that three months after my death every one will have ceased to think of me; three months hence it will be the same as if I had never lived at all.”

“You are well off; you have talent and beauty.  What more do you want?”

“The world cannot give me happiness.  You find happiness in your own heart, not in worldly possessions....  I am a pessimist.  I recognize that life is a miserable thing—­not only a miserable thing, but a useless thing.  We can do no good; there is no good to be done; and life has no advantage except that we can put it off when we will.  Schopenhauer is wrong when he asserts that suicide is no solution of the evil; so far as the individual is concerned suicide is a perfect solution, and were the race to cease to-morrow, nature would instantly choose another type and force it into consciousness.  Until this earth resolves itself to ice or cinder, matter will never cease to know itself.”

“My dear,” said Lewis Seymour, who entered the room at that moment, “I am feeling very tired; I think I shall go home, but do not mind me.  I will take a hansom—­you can have your brougham.  You will not mind coming home alone?”