he
makings of a very fine prig in you, Dick,' said the Nilghai.

'I've liberated my mind, estimable Binkie, with the feathers in his
mouth.' Dick picked up the still indignant one and shook him tenderly.

'You're tied up in a sack and made to run about blind, Binkie-wee,
without any reason, and it has hurt your little feelings. Never mind.
Sic volo, sic jubeo, stet pro ratione voluntas, and don't sneeze in my
eye because I talk Latin. Good-night.'

He went out of the room.

'That's distinctly one for you,' said the Nilghai. 'I told you it was
hopeless to meddle with him. He's not pleased.'

'He'd swear at me if he weren't. I can't make it out. He has the
go-fever upon him and he won't go. I only hope that he mayn't have to go
some day when he doesn't want to,' said Torpenhow.

* * * * *

In his own room Dick was settling a question with himself--and the
question was whether all the world, and all that was therein, and a
burning desire to exploit both, was worth one threepenny piece thrown
into the Thames.

'It came of seeing the sea, and I'm a cur to think about it,' he
decided.

'After all, the honeymoon will be that tour--with reservations; only...
only I didn't realise that the sea was so strong. I didn't feel it so
much when I was with Maisie. These damnable songs did it. He's beginning
again.'

But it was only Herrick's Nightpiece to Julia that the Nilghai sang,
and before it was ended Dick reappeared on the threshold, not altogether
clothed indeed, but in his right mind, thirsty and at peace.

The mood had come and gone with the rising and the falling of the tide
by Fort Keeling.

CHAPTER IX

'If I have taken the common clay
And wrought it cunningly
In the shape of a god that was digged a clod,
The greater honour to me.'

'If thou hast taken the common clay,
And thy hands be not free
From the taint of the soil, thou hast made thy spoil
The greater shame to thee.'--The Two Potters.

HE DID no work of any kind for the rest of the week. Then came another
Sunday. He dreaded and longed for the day always, but since the
red-haired girl had sketched him there was rather more dread than desire
in his mind.

He found that Maisie had entirely neglected his suggestions about
line-work. She had gone off at score filed with some absurd notion for a
'fancy head.' It cost Dick something to command his temper.

'What's the good of suggesting anything?' he said