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16 is ready for the tomb in Verona, but he is only ready for the chambre meublée, or at most for the saison aux eaux.'

'Is she always ready for the tomb in Verona?' asked a sceptical voice. 'Does she not sometimes, even very often, marry Paris, and "carry on" with Romeo? If I may be allowed to say so, there a few impassioned and profound temperaments in the world to many light ones; the bread and the sack are, as usual, unevenly apportioned, but these graver and deeper natures are not all necessarily feminine. It is when you have to great and ardent natures involved (and then alone) that you get passion, high devotion, tragedy; but this conjunction is as rare as the passing of Venus across the sun. Usually Romeo throws himself away on some Lady Frivolous, and Juliet breaks her heart for some fop or some fool.'

'That is only because all human life is a game of cross purposes; one only wonders who first set the game going, to amuse the gods or make them weep.'

'That question will scarcely come under the head of amatory analysis. Besides, the