f over again."

He put the untasted coffee down on the nearest table. "There is no
getting away," he said, coming back to her, "from one's old self. That
is why this work you have undertaken is so hopeless."

"Hopeless?" she exclaimed in a startled voice. He was saying aloud what
she had more than once almost--never quite--whispered in her heart of
hearts.

"You ought to have begun with the baroness thirty years ago, to have had
a chance of success."

"Why, she was five years old then, and I am sure quite cheerful. And I
wasn't there at all."

"Five ought really to be the average age of the Chosen. What is the use
of picking out unhappy persons well on in life, and thinking you are
going to make them happy? How can you _make_ them be happy? If it had
been possible to their natures they would have been so long ago, however
poor they were. And they would not have been so poor or so unhappy if
they had been willing to work. Work is such an admirable tonic. The
princess works, and finds life very tolerable. You will never succeed
with people like Frau von Treumann and the baroness. They belong to a
class of persons that will grumble even in heaven. You could easily make
those who are happy already still happier, for it is in them--the
gratitude and appreciation for life and its blessings; but those of
course are not the people you want to get at. You think I am preaching?"
he asked abruptly.

"But are you not?"

"It is because I cannot stand by and watch you bruising yourself."

"Oh," said Anna, "you are a man, and can fight your way well enough
through life. You are quite comfortable and prosperous. How can you
sympathise with women like Else? Because she is not young you haven't a
feeling for her--only indifference. You talk of my bruising myself--you
don't mind her bruises. And if I were forty, how sure I am that you
wouldn't mind mine."

"Yes, I would," said Axel, with such conviction that she added quickly,
"Well--I don't want to talk about bruises."

"I hope the baroness will soon get over the cruel ones that singularly
brutal young man has inflicted. You agree with me that he _is_ a
singularly brutal young man?"

"Absolutely."

"And I hope that when she is well again you will make her as happy as
she is capable of being."

"If I knew how!"

"Why, by letting her go away, and giving her enough to live on decently
by herself. It would be quite the best course to take, both for you and
for her."

An