n wasted," Elgar pursued, leaning forward
with a new light on his countenance. "I have been gaining experience.
Do you understand? Few men at my age have seen more of life--the kind
of life that is useful as literary material. It's only quite of late
that I have begun to appreciate this, to see all the possibilities that
are in myself. It has taken all this time to outgrow the miserable
misdirection of my boyhood, and to become a man of my time. Thank the
fates, I no longer live in the Pentateuch, but at the latter end of the
nineteenth century. Many a lad has to work this deliverance for himself
nowadays. I don't wish to speak unkindly any more, Miriam, but I must
tell you plain facts. Some fellows free themselves by dint of hard
study. In my case that was made impossible by all sorts of
reasons--temperament mainly, as you know. I was always a rebel against
my fetters; I had not to learn that liberty was desirable, but how to
obtain it, and what use to make of it. All the disorder through which I
have gone was a struggle towards self-knowledge and understanding of my
time. You and others are wildly in error in calling it dissipation,
profligacy, recklessness, and so on. You at least, Miriam, ought to
have judged me more truly; you, at all events, should not have classed
me with common men."

His eyes were now agleam, and the beauty of his countenance fully
manifest. He held his head in a pose of superb confidence. There was
too much real force in his features to make this seem a demonstration
of idle vanity. Miriam regarded him, and continued to do so.

"To be sure, my powers are in your eyes valueless," he pursued; "or
rather, your eyes have never been opened to anything of the kind. The
nineteenth century is nothing to you; its special opportunities and
demands and characteristics would revolt you if they were made clear to
your intelligence. If I tell you I am before everything a man of my
time, I suppose this seems only a cynical confession of all the
weaknesses and crimes you have already attributed to me? It shall not
always be so! Why, what are you, after all, Miriam? Twenty-three,
twenty-four--which is it? Why, you are a child still; your time of
education is before you. You are a child come to Italy to learn what
can be made of life!"

She averted her face, but smiled, and not quite so coldly as of wont.
She could not but think of Cecily, whose words a few days ago had been
in spirit so like these, so like