imagination. It stands alone in my experience, unlike any place I have ever known."

The elder man sunk further back against the pillows, and, with one long, thin hand, drew the violet, fur-lined dressing-gown closer across his knees as though cold.

"Indeed. Have I divorced myself and my surroundings so completely from the ordinary habits of my contemporaries?"

"You've been strong enough to follow your own tastes and lead your own life, and that has produced something unique, something as finished as it is apart. Of course, this provokes a lot of criticism. Other people, I observe, recognise that it is unique too."

"Other people?" Mr. Rivers said loftily. "I have never entertained."

"Exactly," Laurence answered. "That's where part of the uniqueness comes in. We mostly herd together like sheep in a pen, and can't be easy unless we're rubbing sides."—He paused a moment. "Your refusal to rub sides causes great searchings of heart, I assure you. The poor, little parson here, for instance, is tormented by the idea that it is his duty to the Almighty, and to the Church of England, and to his own abnormally developed conscience, to raid you and do a little spiritual gardening in the neglected flower-beds of your soul."

"My soul is my own," Mr. Rivers observed. "That is, if the term soul is, strictly speaking, admissible. Conscious consciousness is all that I can predicate of my other than physical existence."

"The little parson's point of view is quite different. He is by no means backward in predication. He is quite sure you have a soul; but whether it is your own, or whether it doesn't belong to him as curate-in-charge of Stoke Rivers, he is not at all sure. He has strong leanings to the latter belief, I fancy."

"These are puerilities."

"The average man is puerile," Laurence asserted cheerfully. "We carted away Woman last night, sir, you remember, in deference to your slight prejudice against her—though I still maintain she is by no means foreign to our inquiry. But I really can't consent to the carting away of puerility too, or you will never get hold of the average man at all. Forbid his affections and his ineptitudes both, and you don't leave the poor wretch a leg to stand on. Meanwhile, the little parson is not the only person a good deal worked up by the unique character of your habits and surroundings. These give rise, indirectly, to surprising 

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