"Do not dare to understand me," he said. "It is the most sincere unkindness when one talks only to answer. And as for bridge—remember that this is a night of mourning. Bridge is far too frivolous a pursuit."
"Bridge a frivolous pursuit?" Sybil exclaimed. "Heavens, what sacrilege. What ought we to do, Lord Arranmore?"
"Sit in sackcloth and ashes, and hear Brooks lecture on the poor," he answered, lightly. "Brooks is a mixture of the sentimentalist and the hideous pessimist, you know, and it is the privilege of his years to be sometimes in earnest. I know nothing more depressing than to listen to a man who is in earnest."
"You are getting positively light-headed," Sybil laughed. "I can see no pleasure in life save that which comes from an earnest pursuit of things, good or evil."
"My dear child," Lord Arranmore answered, "when you are a little older you will know that to take life seriously is a sheer impossibility. You may think that you are doing it, but you are not."
"There must be exceptions," Sybil declared.
"There are none," Lord Arranmore answered, lightly, "outside the madhouse. For the realization of life comes only hand in hand with insanity. The people who have come nearest to it carry the mark with them all their life. For the fever of knowledge will scorch even those who peer over the sides of the cauldron."
Lady Caroom helped herself to some more tea.
"Really, Arranmore," she drawled, "for sheer and unadulterated pessimism you are unsurpassed. You must be a very morbid person."
He shrugged his shoulders.