Ella assured him that she could not fail to be interested in any /Carmen/, new or old. It was so good of him to take all that trouble for her, knowing how devoted she was to opera. She hoped that Herbert --she called him Herbert in the presence of her husband--was in a /Carmen/ mood.

"I'm always in a mood to study anything that's unreservedly savage," said he.

"There's not much reservation about our little friend /Carmen/," said Mr. Linton. "She tells you her philosophy in her first moment before you."

"There you are: /Misteroso e l'amore/--that's the philosophy of your pretty savage, Herbert."

"Yes," said Herbert; "it's that philosophy which consists in an absence of philosophy--not the worst kind, either, it seems to me. It's the philosophy of impulse."

"I thought that the aim of all philosophy was to check every impulse," said Ella.

"So it is; that's why women do not make good philosophers," said her husband.

"Or, for that matter, good mothers of philosophers," said Herbert.