During all this period her existence was apparently as successful and
brilliant as ever. She was still a leader in London, knowing and known
to everyone, going to all interesting functions, receiving at her house
all the famous men and women of the day. To an observer it would have
seemed that she occupied an impregnable position and that she was having
a wonderful time. But she was really a very unhappy woman at violent
odds with herself.

On one occasion when she was giving a dinner in her house a discussion
broke out on the question of happiness. It was asked by someone, "If you
could demand of the gods one gift, with the certainty of receiving
it, what gift would you demand?" Various answers were given. One said,
"Youth for as long as I lived"; another "Perfect health"; another
"Supreme beauty"; another "The most brilliant intellect of my time";
another "The love and admiration of all I came in contact with."
Finally a sad-looking elderly man, poet, philosopher, and the former
administrator of a great province in India, was appealed to. His answer
was, "Complete peace of mind." And on his answer followed the general
discussion about happiness.

When the party broke up and Lady Sellingworth was alone she thought
almost desperately about that discussion and about the last answer to
the question which had been put.

Complete peace of mind! How extraordinary it would be to possess that!
She could scarcely conceive of it, and it seemed to her that even in her
most wonderful days, in her radiant and careless youth, when she had
had almost everything, she had never had that. But then she had not even
wanted to have it. Complete peace seems but a chilly sort of thing to