“It was worth it,” he said.  And they entered the dining room.  A subdued, golden-green light came in through the tall glass doors that opened out on the little garden which had been Mrs. Forsythe’s pride.  The scent of roses was in the air, and a mass of them filled a silver bowl in the middle of the table.  On the dark walls were Mrs. Forsythe’s precious prints, and above the mantel a portrait of a thin, aristocratic gentleman who resembled the poet Tennyson.  In the noonday shadows of a recess was a dark mahogany sideboard loaded with softly gleaming silver—­Honora’s.  Chiltern sat down facing her.  He looked at Honora over the roses,—­and she looked at him.  A sense of unreality that was, paradoxically, stronger than reality itself came over her, a sense of fitness, of harmony.  And for the moment an imagination, ever straining at its leash, was allowed to soar.  It was Chiltern who broke the silence.

“What a wonderful bowl!” he said.

“It has been in my father’s family a great many years.  He was very fond of it,” she answered, and with a sudden, impulsive movement she reached over and set the bowl aside.

“That’s better,” he declared, “much as I admire the bowl, and the roses.”

She coloured faintly, and smiled.  The feast of reason that we are impatiently awaiting is deferred.  It were best to attempt to record the intangible things; the golden-green light, the perfumes, and the faint musical laughter which we can hear if we listen.  Thalia’s laughter, surely, not Clio’s.  Thalia, enamoured with such a theme, has taken the stage herself—­and as Vesta, goddess of hearths.  It was Vesta whom they felt to be presiding.  They lingered, therefore, over the coffee, and Chiltern lighted a cigar.  He did not smoke cigarettes.

“I’ve lived long enough,” he said, “to know that I have never lived at all.  There is only one thing in life worth having.”

“What is it?” asked Honora.

“This,” he answered, with a gesture; “when it is permanent.”

She smiled.

“And how is one to know whether it would be—­permanent?”

“Through experience and failure,” he answered quickly, “we learn to distinguish the reality when it comes.  It is unmistakable.”

“Suppose it comes too late?” she said, forgetting the ancient verse inscribed in her youthful diary:  “Those who walk on ice will slide against their wills.”

“To admit that is to be a coward,” he declared.

“Such a philosophy may be fitting for a man,” she replied, “but for a woman—­”

“We are no longer in the dark ages,” he interrupted.  “Every one, man or woman, has the right to happiness.  There is no reason why we should suffer all our lives for a mistake.”

“A mistake!” she echoed.

“Certainly,” he said.  “It is all a matter of luck, or fate, or whatever you choose to call it.  Do you suppose, if I could have found fifteen years ago the woman to have made me happy, I should have spent so much time in seeking distraction?”