usual little frown of concentration upon his forehead he was peeling
the skin off a banana. "And he's as ugly as sin." For the ugliness of
St. John Hirst, and the limitations that went with it, he made the rest
in some way responsible. It was their fault that he had to live alone.
Then he came to Helen, attracted to her by the sound of her laugh. She
was laughing at Miss Allan. "You wear combinations in this heat?" she
said in a voice which was meant to be private. He liked the look of her
immensely, not so much her beauty, but her largeness and simplicity,
which made her stand out from the rest like a great stone woman, and
he passed on in a gentler mood. His eye fell upon Rachel. She was lying
back rather behind the others resting on one elbow; she might have been
thinking precisely the same thoughts as Hewet himself. Her eyes were
fixed rather sadly but not intently upon the row of people opposite her.
Hewet crawled up to her on his knees, with a piece of bread in his hand.

"What are you looking at?" he asked.

She was a little startled, but answered directly, "Human beings."

Chapter XI

One after another they rose and stretched themselves, and in a few
minutes divided more or less into two separate parties. One of these
parties was dominated by Hughling Elliot and Mrs. Thornbury, who, having
both read the same books and considered the same questions, were now
anxious to name the places beneath them and to hang upon them stores
of information about navies and armies, political parties, natives and
mineral products--all of which combined, they said, to prove that South
America was the country of the future.

Evelyn M. listened with her bright blue eyes fixed upon the oracles.

"How it makes one long to be a man!" she exclaimed.

Mr. Perrott answered, surveying the plain, that a country with a future
was a very fine thing.

"If I were you," said Evelyn, turning to him and drawing her glove
vehemently through her fingers, "I'd raise a troop and conquer some
great territory and make it splendid. You'd want women for that. I'd
love to start life from the very beginning as it ought to be--nothing
squalid--but great halls and gardens and splendid men and women. But
you--you only like Law Courts!"

"And would you really be content without pretty frocks and sweets and
all the things young ladies like?" asked Mr. Perrott, concealing a
certain amount of pain beneath his ironical manner.

"I'm not a young