. Yes, the most poetical thing, more poetical than the
flowers, more poetical than the stars--the most poetical thing in the
world is not being sick."

"Really," said Gregory superciliously, "the examples you choose--"

"I beg your pardon," said Syme grimly, "I forgot we had abolished all
conventions."

For the first time a red patch appeared on Gregory's forehead.

"You don't expect me," he said, "to revolutionise society on this lawn?"

Syme looked straight into his eyes and smiled sweetly.

"No, I don't," he said; "but I suppose that if you were serious about
your anarchism, that is exactly what you would do."

Gregory's big bull's eyes blinked suddenly like those of an angry lion,
and one could almost fancy that his red mane rose.

"Don't you think, then," he said in a dangerous voice, "that I am
serious about my anarchism?"

"I beg your pardon?" said Syme.

"Am I not serious about my anarchism?" cried Gregory, with knotted
fists.

"My dear fellow!" said Syme, and strolled away.

With surprise, but with a curious pleasure, he found Rosamond Gregory
still in his company.

"Mr. Syme," she said, "do the people who talk like you and my brother
often mean what they say? Do you mean what you say now?"

Syme smiled.

"Do you?" he asked.

"What do you mean?" asked the girl, with grave eyes.

"My dear Miss Gregory," said Syme gently, "there are many kinds of
sincerity and insincerity. When you say 'thank you' for the salt, do you
mean what you say? No. When you say 'the world is round,' do you mean
what you say? No. It is true, but you don't mean it. Now, sometimes a
man like your brother really finds a thing he does mean. It may be only
a half-truth, quarter-truth, tenth-truth; but then he says more than he
means--from sheer force of meaning it."

She was looking at him from under level brows; her face was grave
and open, and there had fallen upon it the shadow of that unreasoning
responsibility which is at the bottom of the most frivolous woman, the
maternal watch which is as old as the world.

"Is he really an anarchist, then?" she asked.

"Only in that sense I speak of," replied Syme; "or if you prefer it, in
that nonsense."

She drew her broad brows together and said abruptly--

"He wouldn't really use--bombs or that sort of thing?"

Syme broke into a great laugh, that seemed too large for his slight and
somewhat dandified figure.

"Good Lord, no!" he said, "that has to be done anonymously