“If there is one platitudinist I dislike more than another, it is Marcus Aurelius,” said Judith.

I laughed.  It was very comfortable to sit before the fire, which protested, in a fire’s cheery, human way, against the depression of the murky world outside, and to banter Judith.

“I can quite understand it,” I said.  “A man sucks in the consolations of philosophy; a woman solaces herself with religion.”

“I can do neither,” she replied, changing her attitude with an exaggerated shaking down of skirts.  “If I could, I shouldn’t want to go away.”

“Go away?” I echud.

“Yes.  You mustn’t be vexed with me.  I haven’t got a cook—­”

“No one would have thought it, from the luncheon you gave me, my dear.”

The alcoholized domestic, by the way, was sent out, bag and baggage, last evening, when she was sober enough to walk.

“And so it is a convenient opportunity,” Judith continued, ignoring my compliment—­and rightly so; for as soon as it had been uttered, I was struck by an uneasy conviction that she had herself disturbed the French caterers in the Tottenham Court Road from their Sabbath repose in order to provide me with food.

“I can shut up the flat without any fuss.  I am never happy at the beginning of a London season.  I know I’m silly,” she went on, hurriedly.  “If I could stand your dreadful Marcus Aurelius I might be wiser—­I don’t mind the rest of the year; but in the season everybody is in town—­people I used to know and mix with —­I meet them in the streets and they cut me and it—­hurts—­and so I want to get away somewhere by myself.  When I get sick of solitude I’ll come back.”

One of her quick, graceful movements brought her to her knees by my side.  She caught my hand.

“For pity’s sake, Marcus, say that you understand why it is.”

I said, “I have been a blatant egoist all the afternoon, Judith.  I didn’t guess.  Of course I understand.”

“If you didn’t, it would be impossible for us.”

“Have no doubt,” said I, softly, and I kissed her hand.

I came into her life when she counted it as over and done with —­at eight and twenty—­and was patiently undergoing premature interment in a small pension in Rome.  How long her patience would have lasted I cannot say.  If circumstances had been different, what would have happened? is the most futile of speculations.  What did happen was the drifting together of us two bits of flotsam and our keeping together for the simple reason that there were no forces urging us apart.  She was past all care for social sanctions, her sacred cap of good repute having been flung over the windmills long before; and I, friendless unit in a world of shadows, why should I have rejected the one warm hand that was held out to me?  As I said to her this afternoon, Why should the bon Dieu disapprove?  I pay him the compliment of presuming that he is a broad-minded deity.