"
But Ideala was disturbed. "I can't read," she said. "Tell me what you
thought of me when I came to you that first day? I fancied you were
old. And I have been afraid since, in spite of your cousin's
suggestion, that you may have considered it odd of me to introduce
myself like that."
"Oh, it is quite customary here," he answered. "But even if it had not
been, we can't all be bound by the same common laws. The ordinary stars
and planets have an ordinary course mapped out for them, and they
daren't diverge an inch. But every now and then a comet comes and goes
its own eccentric way, and all the lesser lights wonder and admire and
let it go."
"That would be very fine for us if only we were comets among the
stars," she said.
"Oh, you might condescend to claim a kindred with them," he answered
lightly.
"The only heavenly body I ever feel akin to is one of those meteors
that flash and fall," she said. "They go their own way, too, do they
not, and are lost?" "There is no question of being lost here," he
interposed. "The most scrupulous have made an exception in favour of
one person, and the world has not blamed them.
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