children, Bertie's cleverness, and Muriel's chickenpox, but always the
Prince seemed interested and polite.

Presently the old man, Stephen Strong, came up and took Mrs.
Hardcastle's chair.

"May I disturb your meditations?" he said. "You look so wise."

"No, I am foolish," Tamara answered. "Now you who know the world must
come and talk and teach me its meaning."

He was rather a wonderful old man, Stephen Strong, purely English to
look at, and purely cosmopolitan in habits and life. He had been in the
diplomatic service years ago, and had been in Egypt in the gorgeous
Ismail time; then a fortune came his way, and he traveled the earth
over. There were years spent in Vienna and Petersburg and Paris, and
always the early winter back in the land of the Sphinx.

"The world," he said, as he arranged himself in the chair, "is an
extremely pleasant place if one takes it as it is, and does not quarrel
with it. One must not be intolerant, and one must not be hypercritical.
See it all and make allowances for the weakness of the human beings who
inhabit it."

"Yes," said Tamara, "I know you are right; but so many of us belong to
a tribe who think their point of view the only one. I do, for instance;
that is why I say I am foolish."

The walkers passed again.