Heavens, how few of them there are! And wherever they go how the air clears up round them! It makes me quite ill to think of the life we lead here--the poverty of it, the preposterous dullness of it....' 'For goodness' sake,' I said, obscurely irritated, 'don't quote the bishop.

The life holds whatever we put into it.' 'For other people it does, and for us it holds what other people put into it,' she retorted.

'I don't know whether you think it's adequately filled with gold lace and truffles.' 'Why should I defend it ?' I asked, not knowing indeed why.

'But it has perhaps a dignity, you know.

Ah, you are too fresh from your baptism,' I continued, as she shook her head and went to the piano.