ness of his age and culture. And the young fellow stared
like a crucified cyclops from his one eye: the black shutter being over
the other.

"And all the graces," capped Sir William, delighted with himself.

"Oh, quite!" said the Major. "For some, all the airs, and for others,
all the graces."

"Faint heart ne'er won fair lady, my boy," said Sir William. "Not that
your heart is faint. On the contrary--as we know, and your country
knows. But with Lady Fortune you need another kind of stout heart--oh,
quite another kind."

"I believe it, sir: and the kind of stout heart which I am afraid I
haven't got," said the Major.

"What!" said the old man. "Show the white feather before you've tackled
the lady! Fill the Major's glass, Colonel. I am quite sure we will none
of us ever say die."

"Not likely. Not if we know it," said the Colonel, stretching himself
heartily inside his tunic. He was becoming ruddier than the cherry.
All he cared about at the moment was his gay little port glass. But
the Major's young cheek was hollow and sallow, his one eye terribly
pathetic.

"And you, Mr. Sisson," said Sir William, "mean to carry all before you
by taking no thought for the morrow. Well, now, we can only wish you
success."

"I don't want to carry all before me," said Aaron. "I should be sorry. I
want to walk past most of it."

"Can you tell us where to? I am intrigued, as Sybil says, to know where
you will walk to. Come now. Enlighten us."

"Nowhere, I suppose."

"But is that satisfactory? Can you find it satisfactory?"

"Is it even true?" said the Major. "Isn't it quite as positive an act to
walk away from a situation as to walk towards it?"

"My dear boy, you can't merely walk away from a situation. Believe that.
If you walk away from Rome, you walk into the Maremma, or into the Alban
Hills, or into the sea--but you walk into something. Now if I am going
to walk away from Rome, I prefer to choose my direction, and therefore
my destination."

"But you can't," said the Major.

"What can't you?"

"Choose. Either your direction or your destination." The Major was
obstinate.

"Really!" said Sir William. "I have not found it so. I have not found
it so. I have had to keep myself hard at work, all my life, choosing
between this or that."

"And we," said the Major, "have no choice, except between this or
nothing."

"Really! I am afraid," said Sir William, "I am afraid I am too old--or
too young--which shall I say?-