exhaustion that
only another effort is required of him; if he cannot make it he is as far
off as ever....

"Anyway," Oleron summed up, "I'm happier here than I've been for a long
time. That's some sort of a justification."

"And doing no work," said Miss Bengough pointedly.

At that a trifling petulance that had been gathering in Oleron came to a
head.

"And why should I do nothing but work?" he demanded. "How much happier am
I for it? I don't say I don't love my work--when it's done; but I hate
doing it. Sometimes it's an intolerable burden that I simply long to be
rid of. Once in many weeks it has a moment, one moment, of glow and
thrill for me; I remember the days when it was all glow and thrill; and
now I'm forty-four, and it's becoming drudgery. Nobody wants it; I'm
ceasing to want it myself; and if any ordinary sensible man were to ask
me whether I didn't think I was a fool to go on, I think I should agree
that I was."

Miss Bengough's comely pink face was serious.

"But you knew all that, many, many years ago, Paul--and still you chose
it," she said in a low voice.

"Well, and how should I have known?" he demanded. "I didn't know. I was
told so. My heart, if you like, told me so, and I thought I knew. Youth
always thinks it knows; then one day it discovers that it is nearly
fifty--"

"Forty-four, Paul--"

"--forty-four, then--and it finds that the glamour isn't in front,
but behind. Yes, I knew and chose, if _that's_ knowing and
choosing ... but it's a costly choice we're called on to make when
we're young!"

Miss Bengough's eyes were on the floor. Without moving them she said,
"You're not regretting it, Paul?"

"Am I not?" he took her up. "Upon my word, I've lately thought I am! What
_do_ I get in return for it all?"

"You know what you get," she replied.

He might have known from her tone what else he could have had for the
holding up of a finger--herself. She knew, but could not tell him, that
he could have done no better thing for himself. Had he, any time these
ten years, asked her to marry him, she would have replied quietly,
"Very well; when?" He had never thought of it....

"Yours is the real work," she continued quietly. "Without you we jackals
couldn't exist. You and a few like you hold everything upon your
shoulders."

For a minute there was a silence. Then it occurred to Oleron that this
was common vulgar grumbling. It was not his habit. Suddenly he rose and
began to stack cups