me what this little flower is?'

I stooped, but was unable to give him the information he desired.

'You don't go in for that kind of thing?'

'Well, no.'

'I'm having a turn at it. I want to know the flowers and ferns. I have a
book at my lodgings, and I look the things up when I get home.'

His wallet contained a number of specimens; he plucked up the little plant
by the root, and stowed it away. I watched him with curiosity. Perhaps I
had seen only his public side; perhaps even then he was capable of dressing
roughly, and of rambling for his pleasure among fields and wood. But such a
possibility had never occurred to me. I wondered whether his brilliant wife
had given him a disgust for the ways of town. If so, he was a more
interesting man than I had supposed.

'Where are you staying?' he asked, after a glance this way and that.

I named the village, two miles away.

'Working?'

'Idling merely.'

In a few minutes he overcame his reserve and began to talk of the things
which he knew interested me. We discussed the books of the past season, the
exhibitions, the new men in letters and art. Ireton said that he had been