"But I do not know it. I deny such knowledge. Where could I have
learned such a principle?"

He spread out his arms in emphatic denial. For he was quick in all
his gestures--quick to laugh or be grave--quick, with the rapidity
of a woman to catch a thought held back by silence or concealed in
speech.

Marvin merely looked at him with a dreamy smile and lapsed again
into those speculations which filled his waking moments; for the
business of life never received his full attention. He contemplated
the world from afar off, and was like that blind man at Bethsaida
who saw men as trees walking, and rubbed his eyes and wondered. He
turned at the sound of the church clock and looked at his son, whose
attitude towards Barebone was that of an admiring younger brother.

"Sep," he said, "your extra half-hour has passed. You will have
time to-morrow and for many days to come to exchange views with
Loo."

The boy was old before his time, as the children of elderly parents
always are.

"Very well," he said, with a grave nod. "But you must not tell Loo
where those young herons are after I am gone to bed."

He went slowly toward the house, looking back suspiciously from time
to time.