an't
help feeling I might have got influence over him."

"I am ignorant of these matters," said Philip; "but I should have
thought that would have increased the difficulty of the situation."

The crisp remark was wasted on her. She looked hopelessly at the raw
over-built country, and said, "Well, I have explained."

"But pardon me, Miss Abbott; of most of your conduct you have given a
description rather than an explanation."

He had fairly caught her, and expected that she would gape and collapse.
To his surprise she answered with some spirit, "An explanation may bore
you, Mr. Herriton: it drags in other topics."

"Oh, never mind."

"I hated Sawston, you see."

He was delighted. "So did and do I. That's splendid. Go on."

"I hated the idleness, the stupidity, the respectability, the petty
unselfishness."

"Petty selfishness," he corrected. Sawston psychology had long been his
specialty.

"Petty unselfishness," she repeated. "I had got an idea that every one
here spent their lives in making little sacrifices for objects they
didn't care for, to please people they didn't love; that they never
learnt to be sincere--and, what's as bad, never learnt how to enjoy
themselves. That's what I thought--what I thought at Monteriano."

"Why, Miss Abbott," he cried, "you should have told me this before!
Think it still! I agree with lots of it. Magnificent!"

"Now Lilia," she went on, "though there were things about her I didn't
like, had somehow kept the power of enjoying herself with sincerity. And
Gino, I thought, was splendid, and young, and strong not only in body,
and sincere as the day. If they wanted to marry, why shouldn't they do
so? Why shouldn't she break with the deadening life where she had got
into a groove, and would go on in it, getting more and more--worse
than unhappy--apathetic till she died? Of course I was wrong. She only
changed one groove for another--a worse groove. And as for him--well,
you know more about him than I do. I can never trust myself to judge
characters again. But I still feel he cannot have been quite bad when
we first met him. Lilia--that I should dare to say it!--must have been
cowardly. He was only a boy--just going to turn into something fine,
I thought--and she must have mismanaged him. So that is the one time I
have gone against what is proper, and there are the results. You have an
explanation now."

"And much of it has been most interesting, though I don't understand
ever