humanity its place. You see we've grown not a little conceited--so at
least it seems to me--on our evolutionary journey up from the
primordial cell. We're too much inclined to forget we've developed soul
quite comparatively recently, and, therefore, that there is probably
just as long a journey ahead of us--before we reach the ultimate of
intellectual and spiritual development--as there is behind us
physically from, say the parent ascidian, to you and me. And--and
somehow"--Honoria's voice had become full and sweet, and she looked
straight at Dickie with a rare candour and simplicity--"somehow those
big open spaces remind one of all that. They drive one's
ineffectualness home on one. They remind one that environment, that
mechanical civilisation, all the short cuts of applied science, after
all count for little and inevitably come to the place called _stop_.
And that braces one. It makes one the more eager after that which lies
behind the material aspects of things, and to which these merely act as
a veil."

Honoria had bowed herself together. Her elbows were on her knees, her
chin in her two hands, her charming face alight with a pure enthusiasm.
And Richard watched her curiously. His acquaintance with women was
fairly comprehensive, but this woman represented a type new to his
experience. He wanted to tolerate her merely, to regard her as an
element in his scheme of self-discipline. And it began to occur to him
that, from some points of view, she knew as much about that, as much
about the idea inspiring it, as he did. He leaned himself back in the
angle of the sofa, and clasped his hands behind his head.

"All the same," he said, "I am afraid those burnt acres on Spendle
Flats are hardly extensive enough to afford an object for me to knock
my head against, and so enforce salutary remembrance of the limitations
of human science. Possibly that has already been sufficiently brought
home to me in other ways."

He paused a minute.

Honoria straightened herself up. Again she saw--whether she would or
no--those defective shortened limbs and oddly shod feet. And again,
somehow, that complaint of the moist spring wind seemed to cry against
her bare arms and neck, begetting an overwhelming pitifulness in her.

"So, since it's not necessary we should reserve it as an object lesson
in general ineffectualness, Miss St. Quentin, what shall we do with
it?"

"Oh, plant," she said.

"With the ubiquitous Scotchman?"

"It w