ing bored, to wait without being impatient, to
be receptive and very alert, though for a long time nothing particular
happened. The change in fact was slow in those early stages."

"Nothing happened?" asked Darcy rather impatiently, with the sturdy
revolt against any new idea which to the English mind is synonymous
with nonsense. "Why, what in the world _should_ happen?"

Now Frank as he had known him was the most generous, most
quick-tempered of mortal men; in other words his anger would flare to a
prodigious beacon, under almost no provocation, only to be quenched
again under a gust of no less impulsive kindliness. Thus the moment
Darcy had spoken, an apology for his hasty question was half-way up his
tongue. But there was no need for it to have travelled even so far, for
Frank laughed again with kindly, genuine mirth.

"Oh, how I should have resented that a few years ago," he said. "Thank
goodness that resentment is one of the things I have got rid of. I
certainly wish that you should believe my story--in fact, you are going
to--but that you at this moment should imply that you do not, does not
concern me."

"Ah, your solitary sojournings have made you inhuman," said Darcy,
still very English.

"No, human," said Frank. "Rather more human, at least rather less of an
ape."

"Well, that was my first quest," he continued, after a moment, "the
deliberate and unswerving pursuit of joy, and my method, the eager
contemplation of Nature. As far as motive went, I dare say it was
purely selfish, but as far as effect goes, it seems to me about the
best thing one can do for one's fellow-creatures, for happiness is more
infectious than small-pox. So, as I said, I sat down and waited; I
looked at happy things, zealously avoided the sight of anything
unhappy, and by degrees a little trickle of the happiness of this
blissful world began to filter into me. The trickle grew more abundant,
and now, my dear fellow, if I could for a moment divert from me into
you one half of the torrent of joy that pours through me day and night,
you would throw the world, art, everything aside, and just live, exist.
When a man's body dies, it passes into trees and flowers. Well, that is
what I have been trying to do with my soul before death."

The servant had brought into the pergola a table with syphons and
spirits, and had set a lamp upon it. As Frank spoke he leaned forward
toward the other, and Darcy for all his matter-of-fact common-sense