"Ah, but you see we're both talking the romance of what-might-have-been," said Gartney smiling, "so my view of the subject is no doubt as probable as your own. However this Italian Paradise with all its faults, consequent on our present-day civilization, has exquisite scenery, and if one were to live here for some years I daresay he would arrive at the nearest approach to primeval happiness possible in this world."
"I'm afraid we shall not have an opportunity of testing the truth of your assertion. We leave here in a fortnight, for Guy is longing for England and the country."
"A nostalgia of the coverts, I presume?"
"Exactly! 'It's a fine day, let us go and kill something.'"
Eustace laughed at this reply, as the neatness of it satisfied his somewhat cynical sense of humour.
"Don't you feel nostalgia yourself, Mr. Gartney?" asked Lady Errington, arranging the lilies at her breast.
He turned his expressive face towards her with a sad smile.
"Not of this earth! I am like Heine, un enfant perdu, and have a home-sickness for an impossible world."
"Created by your own fancy no doubt."
"Yes! Though I dare say if my fancy world became a real one it wouldn't be so pleasant as this one. After all, Chance is the most admirable architect of the future. When men like Sir Thomas More, Plato, Bulwer Lytton and the rest of them, have indulged in paper dreams of ideal worlds, they have always committed the fatal mistake of making the inhabitants insufferable bores, who have attained perfection--and when perfection is attained happiness ceases."