powerful for the thoughts that were
now running through their minds.

"Well," said the older brother, after a time, "I don't suppose
there is anything more I can say. I had hoped to make you feel just as
we do about this thing, but of course you are your own best judge of
this. If you don't see it now, nothing I could say would make you. It
strikes me as a very bad move on your part though."

Lester listened. He said nothing, but his face expressed an
unchanged purpose.

Robert turned for his hat, and they walked to the office door
together.

"I'll put the best face I can on it," said Robert, and walked
out.

CHAPTER XXXIV

In this world of ours the activities of animal life seem to be
limited to a plane or circle, as if that were an inherent necessity to
the creatures of a planet which is perforce compelled to swing about
the sun. A fish, for instance, may not pass out of the circle of the
seas without courting annihilation; a bird may not enter the domain of
the fishes without paying for it dearly. From the parasites of the
flowers to the monsters of the jungle and the deep we see clearly the
circumscribed nature of their movements--the emphatic manner in
which life has limited them to a sphere; and we are content to note
the ludicrous and invariably fatal results which attend any effort on
their part to depart from their environment.

In the case of man, however, the operation of this theory of
limitations has not as yet been so clearly observed. The laws
governing our social life are not so clearly understood as to permit
of a clear generalization. Still, the opinions, pleas, and judgments
of society serve as boundaries which are none the less real for being
intangible. When men or women err--that is, pass out from the
sphere in which they are accustomed to move--it is not as if the
bird had intruded itself into the water, or the wild animal into the
haunts of man. Annihilation is not the immediate result. People may do
no more than elevate their eyebrows in astonishment, laugh
sarcastically, lift up their hands in protest. And yet so well defined
is the sphere of social activity that he who departs from it is
doomed. Born and bred in this environment, the individual is
practically unfitted for any other state. He is like a bird accustomed
to a certain density of atmosphere, and which cannot live comfortably
at either higher or lower level.

Lester sat down in his easy-chair by the window after