complex ones, and we discover energies in matter which seem to increase
even by reason of its tenuity."

As they talked, they threw bits of bread to the birds, and some children
played around them.

Passing from one subject to another:

"This hill, in the quaternary epoch," said Clair, "was inhabited by wild
horses. Last year, as they were tunnelling for the water mains, they
found a layer of the bones of primeval horses."

She was anxious to know whether, at that distant epoch, man had yet
appeared.

He told her that man used to hunt the primeval horse long before he
tried to domesticate him.

"Man," he added, "was at first a hunter, then he became a shepherd,
a cultivator, a manufacturer . . . and these diverse civilizations
succeeded each other at intervals of time that the mind cannot
conceive."

He took out his watch.

Caroline asked if it was already time to go back to the office.

He said it was not, that it was scarcely half-past twelve.

A little girl was making mud pies at the foot of their bench; a little