"But that is not all," continued Hylda. "There is more. She had been used
badly by a man who now wants to marry her--has tried to do so for years.
Now, be prepared for a surprise, for it concerns you rather closely,
Eglington. Fate is a whimsical jade. Whom do you think it is? Well, since
you could never guess, it was Jasper Kimber."
Eglington's eyes opened wide. "This is nothing but a coarse and
impossible stage coincidence," he laughed. "It is one of those tricks
played by Fact to discredit the imagination. Life is laughing at us
again. The longer I live, the more I am conscious of being an object of
derision by the scene-shifters in the wings of the stage. What a cynical
comedy life is at the best!"
"It all seems natural enough," rejoined David.
"It is all paradox."
"Isn't it all inevitable law? I have no belief in 'antic Fate.'"
Hylda realised, with a new and poignant understanding, the difference of
outlook on life between the two men. She suddenly remembered the words of
Confucius, which she had set down in her little book of daily life: "By
nature we approximate, it is only experience that drives us apart.
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