y?"

"This thinking you are speaking of. It is bad!"

"You are foolish! Why should I not want to think?"

"If you begin to think you will begin to doubt," I answered, "and if you
begin to doubt you will begin to understand. The person who once
understands, you know, is never again really happy."

Isobel came and stood in front of me.

"Arnold!" she said.

"Well?"

"I wish you wouldn't talk to me always as though I were a baby," she
said thoughtfully.

I took her hand and made her sit down by my side.

"Come," I protested, "that is not at all fair. I can assure you that I
was taking you most seriously. The people who get most out of life are
the people who avoid the analytical attitude, who enjoy but who do not
seek to understand, who worship form and external beauty without the
desire to penetrate below to understand the inner meaning of what they
find so beautiful."

"That," she said, "sounds a little difficult. But I do not see how
people can enjoy meaningless things."

"The source of all beauty is disillusioning."

"Seriously," Mabane interrupted, "if this conversation develops I am
going indoors. Does Arnold want to penetrate into the hidden meaning of
that cricket's chirp--or is he going to give us the chemical formula for
the smell of the honeysuckle?"

Isobel laughed.

"He is rather trying to-night, isn't he?" she declared. "Listen! Is that
someone going by?"

The footsteps of a man were clearly audible passing along the dusty
little strip of road which fronted our cottage. Leaning forward I saw a
tall, dark figure pass slowly by. From his height and upright carriage I
thought that it must be the village policeman, and I called out
good-night. My greeting met with no response. I shrugged my shoulders.

"Some of these village people are not particularly civil!" I remarked.

Mabane rose to his feet and strolled to the hedge.

"Those were not the footsteps of a villager," he remarked. "Listen!"

We stood quite still. The footsteps had ceased, although there was no
other habitation for more than half a mile along the road. We could see
nothing, but I noticed that Mabane was leaning a little forward and
gazing with a curious intentness at the open common on the other side of
the road. He stood up presently and knocked the ashes from his pipe.

"What do you say to a drink, Arnold?" he suggested.

"Come along!" I answered. "There's some whisky and soda on the
sideboard."

Isobel laughed at u