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Southern Lights and Shadows by Unknown
page 40 of 207 (19%)
different place. On the whole, it will be better. Guy, do you know, I have
just gotten rid of envy and discontent, and that without endangering
ambition. I'll give you the charm; it's a sort of cabalistic _spell_--the
four P's--Occu_p_ation, Res_p_onsibility, _P_urpose, and _P_hilosophy."

"Yes," he said, "the most worth-while thing in life is to feel you are
accomplishing something--doing your work well and getting proportionate
returns."

The tone touched her. "Poor old Guy!" so generously congratulatory of her
flaunted advantages. How stupid she was! Poor Guy! her pretty creed
scattered at a breath like a dead dandelion-ball. Envy she had disposed of,
but what about pity? What had he to make up? "The idea of my talking of
happiness, with you caged here!"

"Perhaps that was the point of it all," he said, "to give you your chance."

"That would be a beautifully humble thing for me to think, now wouldn't
it?" Yet she had once complained that the point of it all was to interfere
with her. "And so sweetly generous. Your chance being--?"

"To serve as a means of grace to you?" He smiled. "I am glad to be of some
use--and honored to be of that one!" he hurried to add, elaborately
humorous.

But what she was noticing was the flagging effort of his vivacity. Her
half-submerged first impression of him was coming to the surface: he did
look unusually haggard. "You haven't been good while I was away. Now don't
tell stories. Don't I know you? No more storms, Guy!" she warned.

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