grey
remainder of the day, over the embers of a hearth which he will only
quit when he quits the world? Does he remember the brilliant sallies
of wit, the greatest triumphs of the noblest minds with which he has
consorted; or does his memory cling to some scene--simple, pastoral,
without incident--which passed before his eyes at a moment when his
heart was sore or glad? When his mind is resting from its labours and
the sound of the grinding is low, he will scarce remember the neat
saying or the lofty thought clothed in perfect language; but he will
never forget a hasty word spoken in an unguarded moment by one who was
not clever at all, nor even possessed the worldly wisdom to shield the
heart behind the buckler of the brain.

"You will find things changed," Colville had said, as they walked across
the marsh from Farlingford, toward the Ipswich road. And the words came
back to the minds of both, on that Thursday of Madame de Chantonnay,
which many remember to this day. Not only did they find things changed,
but themselves they found no longer the same. Both remembered the
quarrel, and the outcome of it.

Colville, ever tolerant, always leaning toward the compromise that eases
a doubting conscience, had, it would almost seem unconsciously,
prepared the way for a reconciliation before there was any question of
a difference. On their way back to France, without directly referring
to that fatal portrait and the revelation caused by Barebone's
unaccountable feat of memory, he had smoothed away any possible scruple.

"France must always be deceived," he had said, a hundred times. "Better
that she should be deceived for an honest than a dishonest purpose--if
it is deception, after all, which is very doubtful. The best patriot is
he who is ready to save his country at the cost of his own ease, whether
of body or of mind. It does not matter who or what you are; it is what
or who the world thinks you to be, that is of importance."

Which of us has not listened to a score of such arguments, not always
from the lips of a friend, but most often in that still, small voice
which rarely has the courage to stand out against the tendency of the
age? There is nothing so contagious as laxity of conscience.

Barebone listened to the good-natured, sympathetic voice with a
make-believe conviction which was part of his readiness to put off an
evil moment. Colville was a difficult man to quarrel with. It seemed
bearish and ill-natured to