de himself out to be silly or clever. She felt herself much nearer to
the simple breathing and growing of all nature than to the silliness or
cleverness of any fellow-creature.

Her lips parted a little and she drew in the air again and again,
slowly and quietly, as if she could drink it, and live on its sweet
taste, and never want food or other drink again, though she was not an
ethereal young person, but only a perfectly healthy and natural girl.
She was not tired, yet somehow she felt that she was resting body, soul
and heart, for a little while, after growing up and before beginning
what was to be her life.

Lushington was perfectly healthy, too, but he was not simple, and was
often not quite natural. He had real troubles and artificial ways of
treating them. He had also been in the thick of the big fight for
several years, he had tasted the wine of success and the vinegar of
failure, the sticky honey of flattery and some nasty little pills
prepared with malignant art by brother critics. With his faults and
weaknesses and absurd sensitiveness, he had in him the stuff that wins
battles with glory, or loses them with honour, promising to fight
again. He was complex. He was rarely quite sure what he felt, though he
could express with precision whatever he thought he was feeling at any
moment.

'How complicated you are!' he exclaimed, when Margaret laughed.

'I was just thinking how simple I am compared with you,' she answered
serenely; 'I mean, when you talk,' she added.

'Thank you for the distinction! "Oliver Goldsmith, for shortness called
Noll, Who writes like an angel but talks like poor Poll." That sort of
thing, I suppose?'

'I did not say that you write like an angel,' answered Margaret, in a
tone of reflection.

'You do not talk like one,' observed Mr. Lushington bitterly. 'Are you
going to Paris to-day?' he inquired after a pause; and he looked at his
watch.

'No. I had my lesson yesterday. But I am going in to-morrow.'

Lushington knew that she had only two lessons a week, and wondered why
she was going to Paris on the following day. But he was offended and
would not ask questions; moreover he did not at all approve of her
studying singing as a profession, and she knew that he did not.

His disapproval did not disturb her, though she should have liked him
to admire her voice because he was really a good judge, and praise from
him would be worth having. He often said sharp things that he did not