and weaknesses and pitifulliesses of other people. We shall not
have to think of those who depend upon us for happiness and selfrespect.
We shall not have to choose between a wasteful fight for a personal end
or the surrender of our heart's desire."

"Heart's desire," she whispered. "Am I indeed your heart's desire?"

Sir Richmond sank his head and voice in response.

"You are the best of all things. And I have to let you go."

Sir Richmond suddenly remembered Miss Seyffert and half turned his face
towards her. Her forehead was just visible over the hood of the open
coupe. She appeared to be intelligently intent upon the scenery. Then he
broke out suddenly into a tirade against the world. "But I am bored
by this jostling unreasonable world. At the bottom of my heart I am
bitterly resentful to-day. This is a world of fools and brutes in which
we live, a world of idiotic traditions, imbecile limitations, cowardice,
habit, greed and mean cruelty. It is a slum of a world, a congested
district, an insanitary jumble of souls and bodies. Every good thing,
every sweet desire is thwarted--every one. I have to lead the life of a
slum missionary, a sanitary inspector, an underpaid teacher. I am bored.
Oh God! how I am bored! I am bored by our laws and customs. I am bored
by our rotten empire and its empty monarchy. I am bored by its parades
and its flags and its sham enthusiasms. I am bored by London and its
life, by its smart life and by its servile life alike. I am bored
by theatres and by books and by every sort of thing that people call
pleasure. I am bored by the brag of people and the claims of people and
the feelings of people. Damn people! I am bored by profiteers and by the
snatching they call business enterprise. Damn every business man! I am
bored by politics and the universal mismanagement of everything. I am
bored by France, by Anglo-Saxondom, by German self-pity, by Bolshevik
fanaticism. I am bored by these fools' squabbles that devastate the
world. I am bored by Ireland, Orange and Green. Curse the Irish--north
and south together! Lord! how I HATE the Irish from Carson to the last
Sinn Feiner! And I am bored by India and by Egypt. I am bored by Poland
and by Islam. I am bored by anyone who professes to have rights. Damn
their rights! Curse their rights! I am bored to death by this year and
by last year and by the prospect of next year. I am bored--I am horribly
bored--by my work. I am bored by every sort of renun