the shining hour? Have you become a convert?"

"I don't think I've read a line," said Rachel.

"That's what I always find. There are too many things to look at. I find
nature very stimulating myself. My best ideas have come to me out of
doors."

"When you were walking?"

"Walking--riding--yachting--I suppose the most momentous conversations
of my life took place while perambulating the great court at Trinity.
I was at both universities. It was a fad of my father's. He thought it
broadening to the mind. I think I agree with him. I can remember--what
an age ago it seems!--settling the basis of a future state with the
present Secretary for India. We thought ourselves very wise. I'm not
sure we weren't. We were happy, Miss Vinrace, and we were young--gifts
which make for wisdom."

"Have you done what you said you'd do?" she asked.

"A searching question! I answer--Yes and No. If on the one hand I have
not accomplished what I set out to accomplish--which of us does!--on the
other I can fairly say this: I have not lowered my ideal."

He looked resolutely at a sea-gull, as though his ideal flew on the
wings of the bird.

"But," said Rachel, "what _is_ your ideal?"

"There you ask too much, Miss Vinrace," said Richard playfully.

She could only say that she wanted to know, and Richard was sufficiently
amused to answer.

"Well, how shall I reply? In one word--Unity. Unity of aim, of dominion,
of progress. The dispersion of the best ideas over the greatest area."

"The English?"

"I grant that the English seem, on the whole, whiter than most men,
their records cleaner. But, good Lord, don't run away with the idea that
I don't see the drawbacks--horrors--unmentionable things done in our
very midst! I'm under no illusions. Few people, I suppose, have
fewer illusions than I have. Have you ever been in a factory, Miss
Vinrace!--No, I suppose not--I may say I hope not."

As for Rachel, she had scarcely walked through a poor street, and always
under the escort of father, maid, or aunts.

"I was going to say that if you'd ever seen the kind of thing that's
going on round you, you'd understand what it is that makes me and men
like me politicians. You asked me a moment ago whether I'd done what I
set out to do. Well, when I consider my life, there is one fact I
admit that I'm proud of; owing to me some thousands of girls in
Lancashire--and many thousands to come after them--can spend an hour
every day in the open air w