aintly in his voice, when he replied to her. "Well," he said,
"what do you do in the schoolroom?"

"We look in the dictionary," Zo answered. "Carmina's got a dictionary.
I'll get it."

She climbed on a chair, and found the book, and laid it on Benjulia's
lap. "I don't so much mind trying to spell a word," she explained. "What
I hate is being asked what it means. Miss Minerva won't let me off. She
says, Look. _I_ won't let _you_ off. I'm Miss Minerva and you're Zo.
Look!"

He humoured her silently and mechanically--just as he had humoured her
in the matter of the stick, and in the matter of the tickling. Having
opened the dictionary, he looked again at Carmina. She had not moved;
she seemed to be weary enough to fall asleep. The reaction--nothing
but the reaction. It might last for hours, or it might be at an end in
another minute. An interesting temperament, whichever way it ended. He
opened the dictionary.

"Love?" he muttered grimly to himself. "It seems I'm an object of
compassion, because I know nothing about love. Well, what does the book
say about it?"

He found the word, and ran his finger down the paragraphs of explanation
which followed. "Seven meanings to Love," he remarked. "First: An
affection of the mind excited by beauty and worth of any kind, or by the
qualities of an object which communicate pleasure. Second: Courtship.
Third: Patriotism, as the love of country. Fourth: Benevolence. Fifth:
The object beloved. Sixth: A word of endearment. Seventh: Cupid, the god
of love."

He paused, and reflected a little. Zo, hearing nothing to amuse her,
strayed away to the window, and looked out. He glanced at Carmina.

"Which of those meanings makes the pleasure of her life?" he wondered.
"Which of them might have made the pleasure of mine?" He closed the
dictionary in contempt. "The very man whose business is to explain it,
tries seven different ways, and doesn't explain it after all. And yet,
there is such a thing." He reached that conclusion unwillingly and
angrily. For the first time, a doubt about himself forced its way into
his mind. Might he have looked higher than his torture-table and his
knife? Had he gained from his life all that his life might have given to
him?

Left by herself, Zo began to grow tired of it. She tried to get Carmina
for a companion. "Come and look out of window," she said.

Carmina gently refused: she was unwilling to be disturbed. Since she had
spoken to Benjulia, her though