ch," he replied simply; "and chiefly the sympathy which understands
without explanations, and I get that only amongst my own folk. Do you
know what that means? I have all the things you speak of: an
increasing practice, an adequate income, good health, work that brings
its own pleasure, an appreciation of life, consequent, no doubt, upon
all these things, and an ardent longing for the relief which only real
sympathy affords."

"I don't understand," said Rose, "notwithstanding my clear outlook on
life."

"Do you?" The Cynic turned to me.

"Partially," I replied. "I can understand that none of these things
satisfies in itself, and that you may have 'all things and abound,' and
yet crave something you cannot work for and earn. But I should have
thought your profession would have left you little time for sentiment,
even if it afforded scope for it."

"You know, then, what my profession is?"

"You are a barrister, and, as Rose says, on the high-road to fame."

"Well," he replied, "I suppose that is true. I have as much work as I
can undertake and I am well paid for it. Success, in that sense, has
come, though slowly, and I am considered by many a lucky fellow. My
future is said to be full of promise. I have, in the sense in which
you spoke, 'all things and abound,' and when I step into the arena of
conflict I am conscious of this, and of this only. In the heat of the
fray the joy of battle comes upon me, and I am oblivious to all else.

"Then comes the after-thought, when the fray is ended and the arena has
been swept clean for the next encounter. 'What lack I yet?' In the
process of gaining the whole world am I going to lose myself? And the
throng presses upon me and slaps my back and shakes my hand and shouts,
'Lucky dog!' into my ear, and I smile and look pleased--am
pleased--until my Good Spirit drives me north, where the air is not
soft, but biting, and men speak their minds without circumlocution and
talk to you without deference, and give you a rough but kindly thrust
if they think you need it. And there I find vision and comfort."

"You are utterly beyond me," said Rose. "You are soaring in the clouds
miles above my head, and I cannot yet understand why you need comfort."

"Do you remember the young ruler who went away sorrowful?" he replied.
He was looking straight ahead, with a sad, fixed look in his eyes such
as I had not seen there before. "I wonder if he went north and found a
friend wh