ertain hypnotic value. Why trouble? Why
fuss? Gardeners, gooseberries, and the great! A perfect land! A land
dedicate to the week-end! Gardeners, goose--! And suddenly he saw that
he was not alone. Half hidden by the angle of the wall, on a stone of the
foundations, carefully preserved and nearly embedded in the nettles which
Clara had allowed to grow because they added age to the appearance, was
sitting a Bigwig. One of the Settleham faction, he had impressed Felix
alike by his reticence, the steady sincerity of his gray eyes, a
countenance that, beneath a simple and delicate urbanity, had still in it
something of the best type of schoolboy. 'How comes he to have stayed?'
he mused. 'I thought they always fed and scattered!' And having
received an answer to his salutation, he moved across and said:

"I imagined you'd gone."

"I've been having a look round. It's very jolly here. My affections are
in the North, but I suppose this is pretty well the heart of England."

"Near 'the big song,'" Felix answered. "There'll never be anything more
English than Shakespeare, when all's said and done." And he took a
steady, sidelong squint at his companion. 'This is another of the types
I've been looking for,' he reflected. The peculiar 'don't-quite-touch-me'
accent of the aristocrat--and of those who would be--had almost left
this particular one, as though he secretly aspired to rise superior and
only employed it in the nervousness of his first greetings. 'Yes,'
thought Felix, 'he's just about the very best we can do among those who
sit upon 'the Land.' I would wager there's not a better landlord nor a
better fellow in all his class, than this one. He's chalks away superior
to Malloring, if I know anything of faces--would never have turned poor
Tryst out. If this exception were the rule! And yet--! Does he, can
he, go quite far enough to meet the case? If not--what hope of
regeneration from above? Would he give up his shooting? Could he give up
feeling he's a leader? Would he give up his town house and collecting
whatever it is he collects? Could he let himself sink down and merge
till he was just unseen leaven of good-fellowship and good-will, working
in the common bread?' And squinting at that sincere, clean, charming,
almost fine face, he answered himself unwillingly: 'He could not!' And
suddenly he knew that he was face to face with the tremendous question
which soon or late confronts all thinkers. Si