“It is so long ago I heard of that, but I will try to remember.  They woke feeling the day was a glorious thing in front of them, that even if they were in England, and it was raining, the sun would soon come out.  And they sang while they dressed, and, if it was summer, they rushed round the garden, and loved all the flowers, and the scent in the air, and the beauty of the lights and colors, and the dear little butterflies.  And they saw the shades on the trees, and they heard the different notes in the birds’ songs.  And they were hungry, and glad to eat bread and milk.  And every goose was a swan, and every moment full of joy, because they said to themselves, ‘Something glorious’ is coming to me, also, in this most glorious world!’”

I laughed softly.  It seemed so true, and so long ago.

Mr. Budge looked at me.  His face was grave and puzzled.

“Child,” he said, “it grieves me to hear you talk so.  I assure you, I, who am really fifty, still enjoy all those things that you say only the very young can appreciate.”

“We have changed places, then!” I answered, lightly.  “And I see Lady Tilchester making a move towards bed.  That is a delightful place, where fifty and fifteen can both enjoy oblivion—­so good-night!” And I smiled at him over my shoulder as I walked towards the door!

Next day, after church, the Duke and I went for a walk.  He kept his promise and did not bore me.  We discussed all sorts of things, some interesting, and all in the abstract.  We left personalities alone.  At last he said: 

“Until the beginning of the nineteenth century things went along gradually.  People could look ahead for a hundred years and say, with something like certainty, what would be likely to take place.  But since then everything has gone with such leaps and bounds that no one could prophesy!  Though in five hundred years we shall probably be a wretched republic, constructed out of the debris of the old order, and the Americans will be an aristocratic nation with a king.”

“What makes you think so?”

“Because when companies of people get sufficiently rich not to have to work they grow to like whatever will appeal to their vanity and self-importance.  There is a halo round a title, and you can leave it to your children.  A king becomes a necessity then.”

“An American king!  It does seem a strange idea.  Well, we shall not be there to see, so it does not matter to us.  ’Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.’”

“History always repeats itself.  Look at the Romans, a civilized republic, and then they must have an emperor.”

“And then the barbarians came and the whole thing was blotted out.  And so in the end, a quoi bon?  No one was ever benefited.”

“But the world would not go on if we said ‘a quoi bon’ to everything.  The fortunate thing is that for the time we think things matter immensely.  When people begin to feel nothing matters at all, it is because their livers are out of order.  And when a nation becomes apathetic, that is what is the matter too.  Look at Italy or Spain!  Their livers are completely out of order.  All their institutions are jaundiced and each country is going down-hill.”