"And how are the children?" Mr. Hamilton-Wells asked affably, when this diversion was over.
"There are no children!" Evadne exclaimed in surprise.
"Are there not, indeed. Now, that is singular," he observed. Then he looked at me as if he were about to say something interesting, but I hastily interposed. I was afraid he was going to speculate about the natural history of the phenomenon which had just struck him as being singular. He knew perfectly well that Evadne had no children, but he was subject, or affected to be subject, to moments of obliviousness, in which he was wont to ask embarrassing questions.
"The weather is quite tropical," was the original observation I made. Mr. Hamilton-Wells felt if the parting of his smooth, straight hair was exactly in the middle, patted it on either side, then shook back imaginary ruffles from his long white hands, and interlaced his jewelled fingers on his lap.
"You were never in the tropics, I think you told me?" he said to Evadne, with exaggerated preciseness. "Ah! now, I have been, off and on, several times. The heat is very trying. I knew a lady, the wife of a Colonial Governor, who used to be so overcome by it that she was obliged to undo all her things, let them slip to the ground, and step out of them, leaving them looking like a great cheese. She told me so herself, I assure you, and she was an exceedingly stout person."
The Heavenly Twins went into convulsions suddenly.
"Is that tea at last?" Evadne asked.
Colonel Colquhoun and I both gladly moved to make room for the servants who were bringing it in, and the conversation was not resumed until they had withdrawn. Then Angelica began: "I came to make a last appeal to you, Evadne. I want to tell you about a poor girl—"
"Oh, don't break this lovely summer silence with tales of woe!" Evadne exclaimed, interrupting her. "I cannot do anything. Don't ask me. You harrow my feelings to no purpose. I will not listen. It is not right that I should be forced to know."
"Well, I think you are making a mistake, Evadne," Angelica replied. "Don't you think so?" looking at me. "She is sacrificing herself to save herself. She imagines she can secure her own peace of mind by refusing to know that there is a weary world of suffering close at hand which she should be helping to relieve. Suffering for others strengthens our own powers of endurance; we lose them if we don't exercise them—and that is the way you are sacrificing yourself to save yourself, Evadne. When some big trouble of your own, one of those which cannot be denied, comes upon you, it will crush you. You will have lost the moral muscle you should be exercising now to keep it in good working order and develop it well for your own use when you require it. It would not be worse for you to take a stimulant or a sedative to wind yourself up to an artificially pleasurable state when at any time you are not naturally cheerful—and that is what a too great love of peace occasionally ends in."