ink anything that was unjust," said Ellen, gravely.

"Ah," Breckon laughed, "I suspect that I should rather have him unjust.
I wish you'd tell me what he would think."

"But I don't know what it is," she protested, with a reflected smile.

"I was in hopes Miss Rasmith might have told you. Well, it is simply
this, and you will see that I'm not quite the universal favorite she's
been making you fancy me. There is a rift in my lute, a schism in my
little society, which is so little that I could not have supposed
there was enough of it to break in two. There are some who think their
lecturer--for that's what I amount to--ought to be an older, if not
a graver man. They are in the minority, but they're in the right, I'm
afraid; and that's why I happen to be here telling you all this. It's
a question of whether I ought to go back to New York or stay in London,
where there's been a faint call for me." He saw the girl listening
devoutly, with that flattered look which a serious girl cannot keep out
of her face when a man confides a serious matter to her. "I might
safely promise to be older, but could I keep my word if I promised to
be graver? That's the point. If I were a Calvinist I might hold fast by
faith, and fight it out with that; or if I were a Catholic I could
cast myself upon the strength of the Church, and triumph in spite of
temperament. Then it wouldn't matter whether I was grave or gay; it
might be even better if I were gay. But," he went on, in terms which,
doubtless, were not then for the first time formulated in his mind,
"being merely the leader of a sort of forlorn hope in the Divine
Goodness, perhaps I have no right to be so cheerful."

The note of a sad irony in his words appealed to such indignation for
him in Ellen as she never felt for herself. But she only said, "I don't
believe Poppa could take that in the wrong way if you told him."

Breckon stared. "Yes your father! What would he say?"

"I can't tell you. But I'm sure he would know what you meant."

"And you," he pursued, "what should YOU say?"

"I? I never thought about such a thing. You mustn't ask me, if you're
serious; and if you're not--"

"But I am; I am deeply serious. I would like, to know how the case
strikes you. I shall be so grateful if you will tell me."

"I'm sorry I can't, Mr. Breckon. Why don't you ask poppa?"

"No, I see now I sha'n't be able. I feel too much, after telling you,
as if I had been posing. The reality has gone