To this the older man dissented tolerantly.

"Pardon: nothing is settled; it is proposed, merely."

"Well," said Karslake with a little laugh that to Sofia sounded empty, "at
all events it ought to be amusing."

The other lifted one eyebrow and smiled remotely.

"You think so?"

"To be ordering you about, sir? I should say so!" But his companion wasn't
listening or chose purposely to ignore that accent of respect.

"You are right, my friend," he said, abstractedly: "it will be amusing. But
what in life is not? I fancy that is why most of us go on, because we find
the play entertaining in spite of ourselves. And even when we think of
Death ... there's the possibility that on the other side of the curtain,
where the unseen audience sits, whose hisses and applause we never hear ...
over there it may be more entertaining still!"

Karslake was inquisitively watching his face.

"You would say that," he commented, deference and admiration in his voice.
"By all accounts you've had a most amusing life."

"I have found it so." The other nodded with glimmering eyes. "Not always at
the time, of course. But when I look back, especially at my beginnings, at
the times that seemed hardest and most intolerable ..."