ther for the sake of the money, or even for the sake of a man, I
should be a little ashamed to talk to you about it. And I think you can
see that I am not ashamed."

"Yes," said the American, with a grave inclination, "yes, I can see
that."

She looked at him thoughtfully for a moment, as if seeking words for an
obscure matter, and then said:

"Do you remember, Mr. Paynter, that day you first lunched here and told
us about the African trees? Well, it was my birthday; I mean my first
birthday. I was born then, or woke up or something. I had walked in
this garden like a somnambulist in the sun. I think there are many such
somnambulists in our set and our society; stunned with health, drugged
with good manners, fitting their surroundings too well to be alive.
Well, I came alive somehow; and you know how deep in us are the things
we first realize when we were babies and began to take notice. I began
to take notice. One of the first things I noticed was your own story,
Mr. Paynter. I feel as if I heard of St. Securis as children hear of
Santa Claus, and as if that big tree were a bogey I still believed in.
For I do still believe in such things, or rather I believe in them
more and more; I feel certain my poor father drove on the rocks by
disbelieving, and you are all racing to ruin after him. That is why I
do honestly want the estate, and that is why I am not ashamed of wanting
it. I am perfectly certain, Mr. Paynter, that nobody can save this
perishing land and this perishing people but those who understand. I
mean who understand a thousand little signs and guides in the very soil
and lie of the land, and traces that are almost trampled out. My husband
understands, and I have begun to understand; my father would never have
understood. There are powers, there is the spirit of a place, there are
presences that are not to be put by. Oh, don't fancy I am sentimental
and hanker after the good old days. The old days were not all good; that
is just the point, and we must understand enough to know the good from
the evil. We must understand enough to save the traces of a saint or a
sacred tradition, or, where a wicked god has been worshiped, to destroy
his altar and to cut down his grove."

"His grove," said Paynter automatically, and looked toward the little
wood, where the sunbright birds were flying.

"Mrs. Treherne," said Ashe, with a formidable quietness, "I am not so
unsympathetic with all this as you may perhaps suppose.