but woe
betide him or her who is the object of such a sentiment. Yet happily,
the real thing _is_ to be found now and again. And from that arises
freedom."

Hadria was playing some joyous impromptu, which seemed to express the
very spirit of Freedom herself.

"I think Hadria has something of the gipsy in her," said Algitha. "She
is so utterly and hopelessly unfitted to be the wife of a prim,
measured, elegant creature like Hubert--good fellow though he is--and to
settle down for life at Craddock Dene."

"Yes," returned the Professor, "it has occurred to me, more than once,
that there must be a drop of nomad blood somewhere among the ancestry."

"Hadria always says herself, that she is a vagabond in disguise."

He laughed. Then, as he drew out a tobacco-pouch from his pocket and
proceeded to light his pipe, he went on, in quiet meditative fashion, as
if thinking aloud: "The fact of the matter is, that in this world, the
dead weight of the mass bears heavily upon the exceptional natures. It
comes home to one vividly, in cases like this. The stupidity and
blindness of each individual goes to build up the dead wall, the
impassable obstacle, for some other spirit. The burden that we have cast
upon the world has to be borne by our fellow man or woman, and perhaps
is doomed to crush a human soul."

"It seems to me that most people are engaged in that crushing industry,"
said Algitha with a shrug. "Don't I know their bonnets, and their
frock-coats and their sneers!"

The Professor smiled. He thought that most of us were apt to take that
attitude at times. The same spirit assumed different forms. "While we
are sneering at our fellow mortal, and assuring him loftily that he can
certainly prevail, if only he is strong enough, it may be _our_
particular dulness or _our_ hardness that is dragging him down to a
tragic failure, before our eyes."

The sun was low when the player came out to the terrace and took her
favourite seat on the parapet. The gardens were steeped in profound
peace. One could hear no sound for miles round. The broad country made
itself closely felt by its stirring silence. The stretches of fields
beyond fields, the woodlands in their tender green, the long, long sweep
of the quiet land, formed a benign circle round the garden, and led the
sense of peace out and out to the horizon, where the liquid light of the
sky touched the hills.

The face of the Professor had a transparent look and a singular beau