ousness of power--something like the matter-of-course assumption
that any given situation could be met with which he ordinarily faced the
world. That he lacked authority in the case was a thought that did not
occur to him--no more than it occurred to him on the day when he rescued
the woman from drowning, or on the night when he had dashed into the
fire to save a man.

It was not till they had descended the straggling, tree-shaded
street--along which the infrequent street-lamps threw little more light
that that which came from the windows shining placidly out on lawns--and
had emerged on the embankment bordering the Charles, that the events of
the evening began for Davenant to weave themselves in with that
indefinable desire that had led him back to Boston. He could not have
said in what way they belonged together; and yet he could perceive that
between them there was some such dim interpenetration as the distant
lamps of the city made through the silvery mist lying on the river and
its adjacent marshes like some efflorescence of the moonlight.

"The difficulty is," he said, after a long silence, "that it's often so
hard to know what _is_ right."

"No, it isn't."

The flat contradiction brought a smile to the young man's lips as they
trudged onward.

"A good many people say so."

"A good many people say foolish things. It's hard to know what's right
chiefly when you're not in a hurry to do it."

"Aren't there exceptions to that rule?"

"I allowed for the exceptions. I said _chiefly_."

"But when you _do_ want to do it?"

"You'll know what it is. There'll be something to tell you."

"And this something to tell you? What do you call it?"

"Some call it conscience. Some call it God. Some call it neither."

Davenant reflected again.

"And you? What do you call it?"

"I can't see that anything would be gained by telling you. That sort of
knowledge isn't of much use till it's worked out for oneself. At least,
it wouldn't be of much use to you."

"Why not to me?"

"Because you've started out on your own voyage of discovery. You'll
bring back more treasures from that adventure than any one can give
you."

These things were said crustily, as though dragged from a man thinking
of other matters and unwilling to talk. More minutes went by before
Davenant spoke again.

"But doesn't it happen that what you call the 'something-to-tell-you'
tells you now and then to do things that most people would call rather