Mr. Pope,” she began to think, looking at the outline of his nose. “I am the most blessed of my sex. Half an inch from me⁠—indeed, I feel the knot of his knee ribbons pressing against my thigh⁠—is the greatest wit in Her Majesty’s dominions. Future ages will think of us with curiosity and envy me with fury.” Here came the lamppost again. “What a foolish wretch I am!” she thought. “There is no such thing as fame and glory. Ages to come will never cast a thought on me or on Mr. Pope either. What’s an ‘age,’ indeed? What are ‘we’?” and their blind progress through Berkeley Square seemed the groping of two blind ants, momentarily thrown together without interest or concern in common, across a blackened desert. She shivered. But here again was darkness. Her illusion revived. “How noble his brow is,” she thought (mistaking a hump on a cushion for Mr.