ng at his feet. It had been with him through all his sickness. "It
must have been part of my delirium, because, now that I've got my senses
back, it's as though someone had told me about it. Speculated in my
railways, eh? Chickens come home to roost, don't they? I suppose I ought
to be excited over it all," he continued. "I suppose I ought. But the
fact is, you only have just the one long, big moment of excitement when
great trouble and tragedy come, or else it's all excitement, all the
time, and then you go mad. That's the test, I think. When you're struck
by Fate, as a hideous war-machine might strike you, and the whole terror
of loss and ruin bears down on you, you're either swept away in an
excitement that hasn't any end, or you brace yourself, and become master
of the shattering thing."

"You are a master," she interposed. "You are the Master Man," she
repeated admiringly.

He waved a hand deprecatingly. "Do you know, when we talked together in
the woods soon after you ran the Rapids--you remember the day--if you
had said that to me then, I'd have cocked my head and thought I was a
jim-dandy, as they say. A Master Man was what I wanted to be. But it's
a pretty barren thing to think, or to feel, that you're a Master Man;
because, if you are--if you've had a 'scoop' all the way, as Jowett
calls it, you can be as sure as anything that no one cares a rap
farthing what happens to you. There are plenty who pretend they care,
but it's only because they're sailing with the wind, and with your even
keel. It's only the Master Man himself that doesn't know in the least
he's that who gets anything out of it all."

"Aren't you getting anything out of it?" she asked softly. "Aren't
you--Chief?"

At the familiar word--Jowett always called him Chief--a smile slowly
stole across his face. "I really believe I am, thanks to you," he said
nodding.

He was going to say, "Thanks to you, Fleda," but he restrained himself.
He had no right to be familiar, to give an intimate turn to things. His
game was over; his journey of ambition was done. He saw this girl with
his mind's eye--how much he longed to see her with the eyes of the
body--in all her strange beauty; and he knew that even if she cared for
him, such a sacrifice as linking her life with his was impossible. Yet
her very presence there was like a garden of bloom to him: a garden full
of the odour of life, of vital things, of sweet energy and happy being.
Somehow, he and she w