ring when they take a thing in their head! A man's nowhere.
I gave in, and gave up, and came away, and now--they're satisfied."

"Then the affair is definitely concluded?"

"As definitely as if my head was off."

Philip did not laugh, and there was a pause again. The colours were
fading from sky and water, and a yellow, soft moonlight began to assert
her turn. It was a change of beauty for beauty; but neither of the two
young men seemed to take notice of it.

"Tom," began the other after a time, "what you say about the way most
of us live, is more or less true; and it ought not to be true."

"Of course it is true!" said Tom.

"But it ought not to be true."

"What are you going to do about it? One must do as everybody else does;
I suppose."

"_Must_ one? That is the very question."

"What can you do else, as long as you haven't your bread to get?"

"I believe the people who _have_ their bread to get have the best of
it. But there must be some use in the world, I suppose, for those who
are under no such necessity. Did you ever hear that Miss--Lothrop's
family were strictly religious?"

"No--yes, I have," said Tom. "I know _she_ is."

"That would not have suited you."

"Yes, it would. Anything she did would have suited me. I have a great
respect for religion, Philip."

"What do you mean by religion?"

"I don't know--what everybody means by it. It is the care of the
spiritual part of our nature, I suppose."

"And how does that care work?"

"I don't know," said Tom. "It works altar-cloths; and it seems to mean
church-going, and choral music, and teaching ragged schools; and that
sort of thing. I don't understand it; but I should never interfere with
it. It seems to suit the women particularly."

Again there fell a pause.

"Where have _you_ been, Dillwyn? and what brought you here again?" Tom
began now.

"I came to pass the time," the other said musingly.

"Ah! And where have you passed it?"

"Along the shores of the Adriatic, part of the time. At Abazzia, and
Sebenico, and the islands."

"What's in all that? I never heard of Abazzia."

"The world is a large place," said Philip absently.

"But what is Abazzia?"

"A little paradise of a place, so sheltered that it is like a nest of
all lovely things. Really; it has its own climate, through certain
favouring circumstances; and it is a hidden little nook of delight."

"Ah!--What took you to the shores of the Adriatic, anyhow?"

"Full of inter