“When did it come?” asked Tom, innocently.
Manvers waited, in the act of flicking the ash off his cigar, for the reply, and Maud looking up saw he was watching her.
“Lord Byron woke one morning and found himself famous,” she said, “but I doubt whether a year afterwards he could have told you whether it was a Monday or a Tuesday.”
“But the occasion,” persisted Tom: “he could have told one that.”
“One occasion doesn’t change one,” said Maud, fencing; “it is always a whole string of things, half of which one forgets afterwards. It is so untrue to speak of a crisis being the effect of one moment.”
Lady Chatham rose.
“How terribly metaphysical you young people are!” she said. “I must go in and write two notes, and then I think I shall go to the House in the carriage which is to fetch Chatham. Maud dear, you look rather tired. Go to bed early.”
Lady Chatham said good night and went indoors.
“That is quite true about crises,” said Tom, after a pause. “I have had one, two, three in my life, and though they all seemed the results of single moments, they were only the culmination of what had been going on before.”
“But the apex of a pyramid remains the highest point. There would be no pyramid without it,” objected Manvers.