"Be precise, my dear friend. I shall hear your view of the truth!"

"I do not accept the correction," Borrowdean answered, quickly. "There
are times when a man can make no mistake, and this is one of them. You
shall hear the truth from me this afternoon, and when your days here have
been spun out to their limit--your days of sybaritic idleness--you shall
hear it again, only it will be too late. You are fighting against Nature,
Mannering. You were born to rule, to be master over men. You have that
nameless gift of genius--power--the gift of swaying the minds and hearts
of your fellow men. Once you accepted your destiny. Your feet were firmly
planted upon the great ladder. You could have climbed--where you would."

A curious quietness seemed to have crept over Mannering. When he
answered, his voice seemed to rise scarcely above a whisper.

"My friend," he said, "it was not worth while!"

Borrowdean was almost angry.

"Not worth while," he repeated, contemptuously. "Is it worth while, then,
to play golf, to linger in your flower gardens, to become a dilettante
student, to dream away your days in the idleness of a purely enervating
culture? What is it that I heard you yourself say once--that life apart
from one's fellows must always lack robustness. You have the instincts of
the creator, Mannering. You cannot stifle them. Some day the cry of the
world to its own children will find its echo in your heart, and it may be
too late. For sooner or later, my friend, the place of all men on earth
is filled."

For a moment that somewhat cynical restraint which seemed to divest of