"Perhaps they do," said Morris, "only I don't see them."

"Then they can't be there."

"Why not? Because things are invisible and intangible it does not follow that they don't exist, as I ought to know as much as anyone."

"Of course; but I am sure that if there were anything of that sort about you would soon be in touch with it. With me it is different; I could sleep sweetly with ghosts sitting on my bed in rows."

"Why do you say that--about me, I mean?" asked Morris, in a more earnest voice.

"Oh, I don't know. Go and look at your own eyes in the gla.s.s--but I daresay you do often enough. Look here, Morris, you think me very silly--almost foolish--don't you?"

"I never thought anything of the sort. As a matter of fact, if you want to know, I think you a young woman rather more idle than most, and with a perfect pa.s.sion for burying your talent in very white napkins."

"Well, it all comes to the same thing, for there isn't much difference between fool-born and fool-manufactured. Sometimes I wake up, however, and have moments of wisdom--as when I made you hear that thing, you know, thereby proving that it is all right, only useless--haven't I?"

"I daresay; but come to the point."

"Don't be in a hurry. It is rather hard to express myself. What I mean is that you had better give up staring."

"Staring? I never stared at you or anyone else, in my life!"

"Stupid Morris! By staring I mean star-gazing, and by star-gazing I mean trying to get away from the earth--in your mind, you know."

Morris ran his fingers through his untidy hair and opened his lips to answer.

"Don't contradict me," she interrupted in a full steady voice. "That's what you are thinking of half the day, and dreaming about all the night."

"What's that?" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.

"I don't know," she answered, with a sudden access of indifference. "Do you know yourself?"

"I am waiting for instruction," said Morris, sarcastically.

"All right, then, I'll try. I mean that you are not satisfied with this world and those of us who live here. You keep trying to fashion another--oh! yes, you have been at it from a boy, you see I have got a good memory, I remember all your 'vision stories'--and then you try to imagine its inhabitants."

"Well," said Morris, with the sullen air of a convicted criminal, "without admitting one word of this nonsense, what if I do?"

"Only that you had better look out that you don't _find_ whatever it is you seek. It's a horrible mistake to be so spiritual, at least in that kind of way. You should eat and drink, and sleep ten hours as I do, and not go craving for vision till you can see, and praying for power until you can create."

"See! Create! Who? What?"

"The inhabitant, or inhabitants. Just think, you may have been building her up all this time, imagination by imagination, and thought by thought. Then her day might come, and all that you have put out piecemeal will return at once. Yes, she may appear, and take you, and possess you, and lead you----"

"She? Why she? and where?"

"To the devil, I imagine," answered Mary composedly, "and as you are a man one can guess the guide's s.e.x. It's getting dark, let us go out. This is such a creepy place in the dark that it actually makes me understand what people mean by nerves. And, Morris, of course you understand that I have only been talking rubbish. I always liked inventing fairy tales; you taught me; only this one is too grown up--disagreeable. What I really mean is that I do think it might be a good thing if you wouldn't live quite so much alone, and would go out a bit more. You are getting quite an odd look on your face; you are indeed, not like other men at all. I believe that it comes from your worrying about this wretched invention until you are half crazy over the thing. Any change there?"

He shook his head. "No, I can't find the right alloy--not one that can be relied upon. I begin to doubt whether it exists."

"Why don't you give it up--for a while at any rate?"

"I have. I made a novel kind of electrical hand-saw this spring, and sold the patent for 100 pounds and a royalty. There's commercial success for you, and now I am at work on a new lamp of which I have the idea."

"I am uncommonly glad to hear it," said Mary with energy. "And, I say, Morris, you are not offended at my silly parables, are you? You know what I mean."

"Not a bit. I think it is very kind of you to worry your head about an impossible fellow like me. And look here, Mary, I have done some dreaming in my time, it is true, for so far the world has been a place of tribulation to me, and it is sick hearts that dream. But I mean to give it up, for I know as well as you do that there is only one end to all these systems of mysticism." Mary looked up.

"I mean," he went on, correcting himself, "to the mad attempt unduly and prematurely to cultivate our spiritual natures that we may live to and for them, and not to and for our natural bodies."

"Exactly my argument, put into long words," said Mary. "There will be plenty of time for that when we get down among those old gentlemen yonder--a year or two hence, you know. Meanwhile, let us take the world as we find it. It isn't a bad place, after all, at times, and there are several things worth doing for those who are not too lazy.

"Good-bye, I must be off; my bicycle is there against the railings.

Oh, how I hate that machine! Now, listen, Morris; do you want to do something really useful, and earn the blessings of an affectionate relative? Then invent a really reliable electrical bike, that would look nice and do all the work, so that I could sit on it comfortably and get to a place without my legs aching as though I had broken them, and a red face, and no breath left in my body."

"I will think about it," he said; "indeed, I have thought of it already but the acc.u.mulators are the trouble."

"Then go on thinking, there's an angel; think hard and continually until you evolve that blessed instrument of progression. I say, I haven't a lamp."

"I'll lend you mine," suggested Morris.

"No; other people's lamps always go out with me, and so do my own, for that matter. I'll risk it; I know the policeman, and if we meet I will argue with him. Good-bye; don't forget we are coming to dinner to-morrow night. It's a party, isn't it?"

"I believe so."

"What a bore, I must unpack my London dresses. Well, good-bye again."

"Good-bye, dear," answered Morris, and she was gone.

"'Dear,'" thought Mary to herself; "he hasn't called me that since I was sixteen. I wonder why he does it now? Because I have been scolding him, I suppose; that generally makes men affectionate."

For a while she glided forward through the grey twilight, and then began to think again, muttering to herself:

"You idiot, Mary, why should you be pleased because he called you 'dear'? He doesn't really care two-pence about you; his blood goes no quicker when you pa.s.s by and no slower when you stay away. Why do you bother about him? and what made you talk all that stuff this afternoon?

Because you think he is in a queer way, and that if he goes on giving himself up to his fancies he will become mad--yes, mad--because--Oh!

what's the use of making excuses--because you are fond of him, and always have been fond of him from a child, and can't help it. What a fate! To be fond of a man who hasn't the heart to care for you or for any other woman. Perhaps, however, that's only because he hasn't found the right one, as he might do at any time, and then----"

"Where are you going to, and where's your light?" shouted a hoa.r.s.e voice from the pathway on which she was unlawfully riding.

"My good man, I wish I knew," answered Mary, blandly.

Morris, for whom the day never seemed long enough, was a person who breakfasted punctually at half-past eight, whereas Colonel Monk, to whom--at any rate at Monksland--the day was often too long, generally breakfasted at ten. To his astonishment, however, on entering the dining-room upon the morrow of his interview in the workshop with Mary, he found his father seated at the head of the table.

"This means a 'few words' with me about something disagreeable," thought Morris to himself as he dabbed viciously at an evasive sausage. He was not fond of these domestic conversations. Nor was he in the least rea.s.sured by his father's airy and informed comments upon the contents of the "Globe," which always arrived by post, and the marvel of its daily "turnover" article, whereof the perpetual variety throughout the decades const.i.tuted, the Colonel was wont to say, the eighth wonder of the world. Instinct, instructed by experience, a.s.sured him that these were but the first moves in the game.

Towards the end of the meal he attempted retreat, pretending that he wanted to fetch something, but the Colonel, who was watching him over the top of the pink page of the "Globe," intervened promptly.