wards the
wayside station, and drearily he waited for the train that was to take
him back to his meaningless toil and strife.

In the compartment he entered, an empty one, some passenger had left a
weekly periodical; Piers seized upon it gladly, and read to distract
his thoughts. One article interested him; it was on the subject of
national characteristics: cleverly written, what is called "smart"
journalism, with grip and epigram, with hint of universal knowledge and
the true air of British superiority. Having scanned the writer's
comment on the Slavonic peoples, Piers laughed aloud; so evidently it
was a report at second or third hand, utterly valueless to one who had
any real acquaintance with the Slavs. This moment of spontaneous mirth
did him good, helped to restore his self-respect. And as he pondered
old ambitions stirred again in him. Could he not make some use of the
knowledge he had gained so laboriously--some use other than that
whereby he earned his living? Not so long ago, he had harboured great
designs, vague but not irrational. And to-day, even in bidding himself
be humble, his intellect was little tuned to humility. He had never, at
his point of darkest depression, really believed that life had no
shining promise for him. The least boastful of men, he was at heart one
of the most aspiring. His moods varied wonderfully. When he alighted at
the London terminus, he looked and felt like a man refreshed by some
new hope.

Half by accident, he kept the paper he had been reading. It lay on his
table in Guildford Street for weeks, for months. Years after, he came
upon it one day in turning out the contents of a trunk, and remembered
his ramble in the Sussex woodland, and smiled at the chances of life.

On Monday morning he had a characteristic letter from Moncharmont, part
English, part French, part Russian. Nothing, or only a passing word,
about business; communications of that sort were all addressed to the
office, and were as concise, as practical, as any trader could have
desired. In his friendly letter, Moncharmont chatted of a certain
Polish girl with whom he had newly made acquaintance, whose beauty,
according to the good Andre, was a thing to dream of, not to tell. It
meant nothing, as Piers knew. The cosmopolitan Swiss fell in love some
dozen times a year, with maidens or women of every nationality and
every social station. Be the issue what it might, he was never unhappy.
He had a gallery of photogr