them,
he might yet satisfy her, and stretch out his hands with a pagan's
yearning. As it was, he only rode her horses, and trespassed, and
bathed, and worked, for no obvious reason, upon her fields. Affection
she did not believe in, and made no attempt to mould him; and he, for
his part, was very content to harden untouched into a man. His parents
had given him excellent gifts--health, sturdy limbs, and a face not
ugly,--gifts that his habits confirmed. They had also given him a
cloudless spirit--the spirit of the seventeen days in which he was
created. But they had not given him the spirit of their sit years of
waiting, and love for one person was never to be the greatest thing he
knew.

"Philosophy" had postponed the quarrel between them. Incurious about his
personal origin, he had a certain interest in our eternal problems. The
interest never became a passion: it sprang out of his physical growth,
and was soon merged in it again. Or, as he put it himself, "I must get
fixed up before starting." He was soon fixed up as a materialist. Then
he tore up the sixpenny reprints, and never amused Mrs. Failing so much
again.

About the time he fixed himself up, he took to drink. He knew of no
reason against it. The instinct was in him, and it hurt nobody. Here, as
elsewhere, his motions were decided, and he passed at once from roaring
jollity to silence. For those who live on the fuddled borderland, who
crawl home by the railings and maunder repentance in the morning, he had
a biting contempt. A man must take his tumble and his headache. He was,
in fact, as little disgusting as is conceivable; and hitherto he had not
strained his constitution or his will. Nor did he get drunk as often as
Agnes suggested. The real quarrel gathered elsewhere.

Presentable people have run wild in their youth. But the hour comes when
they turn from their boorish company to higher things. This hour never
came for Stephen. Somewhat a bully by nature, he kept where his powers
would tell, and continued to quarrel and play with the men he had known
as boys. He prolonged their youth unduly. "They won't settle down," said
Mr. Wilbraham to his wife. "They're wanting things. It's the germ of
a Trades Union. I shall get rid of a few of the worst." Then Stephen
rushed up to Mrs. Failing and worried her. "It wasn't fair. So-and-so
was a good sort. He did his work. Keen about it? No. Why should he be?
Why should he be keen about somebody else's land? But