the veriest pauper that ever existed—and yet I've had the deuce of a fine existence the while. I think there's only one solid blunder been made about man—he[Pg 95] oughtn't to have been able to think. It wastes time. It makes many people unhappy. That's not my case. I like it. It just wastes time.

[Pg 95]

"That insinuating minx, possessed of a convenient dog and an ingratiating manner, insinuated to-day that I was handsome. Well, she's pretty, and I suppose we're both better off for it. It is an introduction. But to myself I don't seem very handsome. I have my pride—I look a gentleman. But I look a queer foreign fish. I found myself envying the British robustness of that fine young chap who is so misguided as to be a lawyer.

"Ah, why do I object to lawyers? Tolstoi!—I used to say—or, at the risk of advanced intellects not recognizing one's allusions, one could go further back. But that is, in the end, all gammon. Every real conviction springs from personal experience.[Pg 96] I hate the law because it interfered with me. I'm not aware of any better reason. So I'm going on without it—unless somebody tries to steal my forty thousand, of course. Ambrose, thou art a humbug—or, more precisely, thou canst not avoid being a human individual!"

[Pg 96]

Lord Lynborough completed the entry in his diary—he was tolerably well aware that he might just as well not have written it—and cast his eyes toward the window of the library. The stars were bright; a crescent moon decorated, without illuminating, the sky. The regular recurrent beat of the sea on the shore, traversing the interval in night's silence, struck on his ear. "If God knew Time, that might be His clock," said he. "Listen to its inexorable, peaceable, gentle, formidable stroke!"

His sleep that night was short and broken.[Pg 97] A fitful excitement was on his spirit: the glory of the summer morning wooed his restlessness. He would take his swim alone, and early. At six o'clock he slipped out of the house and made for Beach Path. The fortified gate was too strong for his unaided efforts. Roger Wilbraham had told him that, if the way were impeded, he had a right to "deviate." He deviated now, lightly vaulting over the four-foot-high stone wall. None was there to hinder him, and, with emotions appropriate to the occasion, he passed Nab Grange and gained the beach. When once he was in the water, the emotions went away.

[Pg 97]

They were to return—or, at any rate, to be 

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