e
to achieve a multiplicity of base ends, can do nothing for the man
himself unless they are illuminated and shot through by some grand
passion, whether of friendship, religion, or love. Which of these,
depends upon the man. Some fortunate beings are the exponents of all
three. Most of us, and Mr. Spokesly was one, are destined to know very
little of either friendship or religion. So much might have been
postulated. He was under no illusions as to his emotional resources. His
remark that he could fall in love with almost any girl, so long as she
had a bit o' money, was really a very fine declaration of extreme
modesty. The virtuous are less humble. They lay extravagant claims to
the privilege of having an ideal. Mr. Spokesly, as he sat beside Mr.
Bates, who was smiling to himself in the darkness, watched the flashing
lights of the Place de la Liberte grow larger and larger; and, as the
din of the traffic reached his ears, experienced that feeling of
pleasant and passive receptivity which he learned in time to know as the
inevitable precursor of some momentous change.

Not so Mr. Bates, who smiled in the darkness. Mr. Bates was one of those
human beings who manifest the shadowless and unwinking intelligence of
the lower animals. The past, to Mr. Bates, was a period in which he had
done well. The future was a period in which he would do well. Between
these two delectable countries Mr. Bates moved gently along, a slightly
intoxicated optimist. The perils of the sea and of war, the hatred of
man or the wrath of God made no conscious impression upon Mr. Bates at
all. Any of them might crush him at any moment, but he proceeded
steadily upon his predatory way very much as a spider crossing a path
proceeds until some careless but omnipotent passer crushes it beneath
his heel. His attitude towards the gigantic engines of human destiny,
which preoccupy most of us so much, was expressed in the pussy-cat smile
in the darkness--a smile unseen and undesired.

"We'll go into Floka's first," he remarked, as the boat bumped the
marble steps between the kiosks of the Place. He stood up, and his smile
was illuminated by the sizzling glare of the arc lights along the quay,
a smile that was, as we have said, fitted on over his face, and which
bobbed up and down in obedience to the rhythmic undulations of the boat
in the water. They waited for a moment until the Greek had made fast,
and then stepped ashore.

"Why, is that a good place?" e