“Anything else?”

“He believes you,” she continued, “to be harmless enough at a wholesome period of our country’s history.  Just now, he told me yesterday, that he considered it was within your power to bring something very much like ruin upon the country.”

Maraton was silent.  He felt singularly indisposed for argument.  Every condition of life just then seemed too pleasant.  They were walking in the shade, and a soft west wind was rustling in the trees above their heads.

“There are, after all,” she said, “so many happy people in the world.  Is it worth while to drag down the pillars, to bring so much misery into the world for the sake of a dream?”

“I am no dreamer,” he insisted quietly.  “It is possible to make absolute laws for the future with the same precision as one can extract examples from the history of the past.”

“But human nature,” she objected, “is always a shifting quality.”

“Only in detail.  The heart and lungs of it are the same in all ages.”

They crossed the road and turned into St. James’s Park.  He paused for a moment to look at the front of Buckingham Palace.

“A hateful sight to you, of course,” she murmured.

“Not in the least,” he assured her.  “On the contrary, I think that the actual government of this country is wonderful.  I suppose my creed of life would command a halter from any one who heard it, but I raise my hat always to your King.”

“It is going to take me ages,” she sighed, “to understand you.”

“I will supply you with the necessary signposts,” he promised.  “Perhaps you will find then that the task will become almost too easy.  For me I am afraid it will prove too short.”

She turned her head and looked at him curiously.  There was something provocative in the curl of her lips and in her monosyllabic question.

“Why?”

“Because when you have arrived at a complete understanding,” he declared, “I fear we shall have reached the parting of our ways.”

She looked steadfastly ahead.

“Wouldn’t that rather rest with you?” she asked.

They passed a flower-barrow wonderfully laden, and she half stopped with a little exclamation.

“Oh, I must have some of those white roses!” she begged.  “They fit in at this moment with one of my only superstitions.”

He bought her a great handful.  She held them in both hands and gave him her parasol to carry.

“Mine is an inherited superstition, so I will not be ashamed of it,” she told him.  “We have always believed that white roses bring happiness, especially if they come accidentally at a critical moment.”

He glanced behind at the retreating figure of the flower woman.

“If happiness is so easily purchased,” he said, “what a pity it is that I did not buy the barrowful!”

“It isn’t a matter of quantity at all,” she assured him.  “One blossom would have been enough and you were really frightfully extravagant.”