"Perhaps it does. I believe it's the kind of primitive subject it's
likely to take up."

"So that there's that to be thought of, sir. They say the children not
born o' love matches ain't always strong." He added, as he shuffled
toward the door, "We never had no little ones, Brightstone and me--only
a very small one that died a few hours after it was born."

Thor was not convinced by this reasoning, but he was happier than
before. Such expressions of opinion, which would probably be indorsed by
nine people out of ten, assured him that he might follow the urging of
his heart and yet not be a dastard.

* * * * *

He felt on stronger ground, therefore, when he talked with Fay one
afternoon in the week following. "Suppose my father doesn't renew the
lease--what would happen to you?"

Fay raised himself from the act of doing something to a head of lettuce
which was unfolding its petals like a great green rose. His eyes had the
visionary look that marked his inability to come down to the practical.
"Well, sir, I don't rightly know."

"But you've thought of it, haven't you?"

"Not exactly thought of it. He's said he wouldn't two or three times
already, and then changed his mind."

"Would it do you any good if he did? Aren't you fighting a losing
battle, anyhow?"

"That's not wholly the way I judge, Dr. Thor. Neither the losing battle
nor the winning one can be told from the balance-sheet. The success or
failure of a man's work is chiefly in himself."

Thor studied this, gazing down the level of soft verdure to the end of
the greenhouse in which they stood. "I can see how that might be in one
way, but--"

"It's the way I mostly think of, sir. Every man has his own habit of
mind, hasn't he? I agree with the great prophet Thomas Carlyle when he
says"--he brought out the words with a mild pomposity--"when he says
that a certain inarticulate self-consciousness dwells in us which only
our works can render articulate. He speaks of the folly of the precept
'Know thyself' till we've made it 'Know what thou canst work at.' I can
work at this, Dr. Thor; I couldn't work at anything else. I know that
making both ends meet is an important part of it, of course--"

"But to you it isn't the _most_ important part of it."

Fay's eyes wandered to the other greenhouse in which lettuce grew, to
the hothouse full of flowers, and out over the forcing-beds of violets.
"No, Dr. Thor; not the most impor