him. He saw Circe's island,
and knew, since the international codes hold good, he must remember his
allegiance to it. He still owned property there; he must pay his taxes.
But this Eden's garden which was Lydia was his chosen home. He was glad
to see it so. He must, he knew, hereafter see things as they are. And
they would not be tragic to him. They would be curious and funny and
dear: for they all wore the mantle of life. He sat down on a lower step,
and Lydia looked at him gravely, yet with pleasure, too.

"Lydia," said he, "do you know what they're calling me, these foreigners
Madame Beattie's training with?"

She nodded.

"The Prisoner," said Jeff. "That's what I am--The Prisoner."

She hastened to reassure him.

"They don't do it to be hateful. It's in love. That's what they mean it
in--love."

Jeff made a little gesture of the hand, as if he tossed off something so
lightly won.

"Never mind how they mean it. That's not what I'm coming to. It's that
they call me The Prisoner. Well, ten minutes ago it just occurred to me
that we're all prisoners. I saw it as it might be a picture of life and
all of us moving in it. Alston Choate's a prisoner to Esther. So's
Reardon. Only it's not to Esther they're prisoners. It's to the big
force behind her, the sorcery of nature, don't you see? Blind nature."

She was looking at him with the terrified patience of one compelled to
listen and yet afraid of hearing what threatens the safe crystal of her
own bright dream: that apprehensive look of woman, patient in listening,
but beseeching the speaker voicelessly not to kill warm personal
certainties with the abstractions he thinks he has discovered. Jeffrey
did not understand the look. He was enamoured of his abstraction.

"And all the mill hands have been slaves to Weedon Moore because he told
them lies, and now they're prisoners to Madame Beattie because she's
telling them another kind of lie, God knows what. And Addington is
prisoner to catch-words."

"But what are we prisoner to?" Lydia asked sharply, as if these things
were terrifying. "Is Farvie a prisoner?"

"Why, father, God bless him!" said Jeff, moved at once, remembering what
his father had to fight, "he's prisoner to his fear of death."

"And Anne? and I?"

Jeff sat looking at her in an abstracted thoughtfulness.

"Anne?" he repeated. "You? I don't know. I shouldn't dare to say. I've
no rights over Anne. She's so good I'm shy of her. But if I find you're