e may as
well shut his mouth and leave off jabbering for a bit. Here there was
at least silence. Paris had been kindly in its way, but its way was
sordid. He had been left with an impression that the city lacked baths
and the citizens a cleanly comprehension. To forego ham and eggs and
then to eat vastly in the middle of the day! What insipidity it
showed, despite their reputation for taste. And there through a gap in
the woods he saw The Steading, solid and calm as ever. Solidity and
calmness counted, he knew, and what had Paris to do with them?

That evening he walked again with his uncle in the paddock, drinking in
the sweet air, amazed at the restfulness.

"I enjoyed myself all the time," he said. "It was splendid!"

"That was good. And did you learn anything?"

"Nothing much from our talking. But I think I understand about the
mystery."

"I thought Paris might drive it home; it used to smell so in August.
Does it still?"

"In places." The scent of fir-trees came to him on the summer breeze.
"I do see really," he added, almost pleadingly.

"I'm glad for your own sake. It's as well to look at the future. You
may have to go to India. That may mean the end of books and talking
and ideas. But you'll get reasonable pay and occasional leave and then
you won't feel like anything but shooting and fishing. And perhaps
when you're fifty or so you'll struggle back to this kind of existence.
I assure you there's something in it all. And once you've dropped your
philosophy of this and art of that for thirty years they won't come
back. Ham and Eggs will be your only deity. But it isn't merely
carnal."

"I see that," Martin replied.

Somehow the future did not seem so ugly to Martin as he stood watching
the young moon hanging lightly over the dark shoulder of the moor. It
would be good to come back and worship the goddess in Devonshire.

"Thanks for the initiation," he said as they turned back to the house.

V

"The' being no fur' questions, much pleasure call on Mr Leigh for his
paper on Industrialism and the Home." (_Mild applause._)

The members of the King's Essay Society were scattered about Martin's
rooms, lounging in window-seats or strewn on the floor. The air was
thick with smoke, the carpet invisible by reason of the mingled feet,
tobacco, coffee-cups, books, and crystallised fruit. The Push were
present in force, and Lawrence, larger than ever, lounged on the sofa
and smoked