"But I like it; and it keeps me in some degree of comfort."

The man turned impatiently and glanced about him. The front of the old
gray house was flooded with light, and the mossy sward below the terrace
glowed luminously green. The shadows of the hollies and cypresses were
thin and unsubstantial, but where a beech overarched the grass, Evelyn
and Mrs. Chisholm. attired in light draperies, reclined in basket chairs.
Carroll, in thin gray tweed, stood near them, talking to Mabel, and
Chisholm sat on a bench with a newspaper in his hand. He looked half
asleep, and a languorous stillness pervaded the whole scene. Beyond it,
the tarn shone dazzlingly, and in the distance ranks of rugged fells
towered, dim and faintly blue. All that the eye rested on spoke of an
unbroken tranquillity.

"Wouldn't you like this kind of thing, as well?" Vane asked. "Of course,
I mean what it implies--the power to take life easy and get as much
enjoyment as possible out of it. It wouldn't be difficult, if you'd only
take what I'd be glad to give you." He indicated the languid figures in
the foreground. "You could, for instance, spend your time among people of
this sort. After all, it's what you were meant to do."

"Would that appeal to you?"

"Oh, I like it in the meantime," he evaded.

"Well," Lucy returned curtly, "I believe I'm more at home with the other
kind of people--those in poverty, squalor and ignorance. I've an idea
that they have a stronger claim on me; but that's not a point I can urge.
The fact is, I've chosen my career, and there are practical reasons why I