“It is dreadful to grow old,” said Mae, breaking silence, as the carriage clattered over the stony streets.

“My dear,” expostulated Edith, “you surely don’t call yourself old.  What do you mean?”

“I fancied I could take the Carnival as a child takes a big bonbon and just think with a smack of the lips, ‘My! how good this is.’  But here I am, wondering what my candy is made of all the time, and forgetting, except at odd moments, to enjoy myself for trying to separate false from true, and gold from gilt.  Still, what is the use of this stuff now!  I’ll remember that horse race, for there I did forget myself and everything but motion.  How I would like to be a horse!” And the volatile Mae seized the stems of her bouquet for whip and bridle and gave a little inelegant expressive click-click to her lips as if she were spurring that imaginary steed herself.

Norman smiled.  “We can’t keep children for ever, even—­”

“The silliest of us?”

“Even the freshest and blithest.”

“O, dear, that is like a moral to a Sunday-school book,” said Mae; “don’t be goody-goody to-night.”

“What bad thing shall I do to please your majesty, my lady Pasquino?”

“Waltz,” said Mae.  So, after dinner, Edith and Eric sang, and Norman and Mae took to the poetry of motion as ducks take to water, and outdanced the singers.

“Thank you,” said Mae, smiling up at him.  “This has done me good.”  She pushed the brown hair back from her forehead and drew some deep breaths and leaned back in her chair, still tapping her eager, half-tired foot against the floor, while Norman fanned her with his handkerchief.

This time Bero and the strange, veiled lady and Miss Hopkins and every other confusing thought floated off, and left them quite happy for—­well—­say for ten minutes.

And ten minutes consecutive enjoyment is worth waiting for, old and cynical people say.

* * * * *

The next morning brought back all her troubles, with variations and complications, on account of some more misunderstood words.

“I think,” said Mae, as she paused to blot the tenth page of a home letter, “that likes and dislikes are very similar, don’t you, Edith?” Then, as Edith did not reply, she glanced up, and saw that her friend’s chair was occupied by Norman Mann.  He looked up also and smiled.

“I am not Edith, you see, but I am interested in your theory all the same.  Only, as I am a man, I shall require you to show up your reasons.”

“Well, I find that people who affect me very intensely either way, I always feel intuitively acquainted with.  I know what they will think and how they will act under given conditions, and I believe we are driven into friendship or strong dislikes more by the force of circumstances than by—­”

“Elective affinities or any of that nonsense,” suggested Norman Mann.