lure to give them
the opportunity?"

"Both, perhaps. I had no time to fritter away in college; most of the
men did."

"There you are! Can't you see what I mean? The particular things the
fellows did there were forgotten within twenty-four hours, but the
friendships formed while doing them have endured throughout their lives.
The 'things' were the means, the experience was the end. What
friendships can you have here?"

Instead of answering her, Hamlen rose and motioned silently that she
precede him through the arbor and up the path to the edge of the cliff.

"Do you think I can be lonely while I hear the surge of that great ocean
upon my shore?" he demanded. "Do you think I miss the friendships which
so often bring sorrow in their wake while I can conjure up from the past
the most glorious friends the world has ever known, visit with them,
argue over my pet theories, and give them all this setting here whose
counterpart can never be surpassed?"

She smiled sadly in reply. "You have built your life upon the same basis
as this island itself," she said--"upon the foundations of what is dead
and past. You have argued with yourself until you have come to believe
the fallacy you preach--that you, an Anglo-Saxon, can be content with
such a life as this. Are you true to your responsibilities? Are you--"

"What do I owe the world?" he interrupted. "I ask from it nothing but
peace and solitude, and surely even the most insignificant has a right
to that without incurring responsibilities. Why, Marian, I stand here
upon this Point, as the little steamers leave their trail of smoke
behind them, and thank God that for one day, three days, a week, we are
cut off from the world. There is nothing I love so much as this
separation from my fellow-men."

"Then how fortunate, after all--" she began, but he interrupted her.

"That is another story," he insisted. "I am speaking of what life means
to me to-day, not what it might have meant under other circumstances."

They strolled slowly back into the garden and settled themselves upon a
stone seat which commanded a superb view of the surrounding country. It
was her heart rather than her eyes which controlled Marian now, and she
saw before her nothing but this man-grown boy, who at an earlier time in
her life had exercised an absorbing influence upon her. It was her
heart, still loyal to the friendship which remained, struggling to find
the right word which should start in motion the