ho was within
earshot, he replied, "You used to puzzle me, Aunt Emily, but I
understand you at last. You have forgotten what other people are like.
Continual selfishness leads to that. I am sure of it. I see now how you
look at the world. 'Nice of me to be shocked!' I want to go tomorrow, if
I may."

"Certainly, dear. The morning trains are the best." And so the
disastrous visit ended.

As he walked back to the house he met a certain poor woman, whose child
Stephen had rescued at the level-crossing, and who had decided, after
some delay, that she must thank the kind gentleman in person. "He has
got some brute courage," thought Rickie, "and it was decent of him not
to boast about it." But he had labelled the boy as "Bad," and it was
convenient to revert to his good qualities as seldom as possible. He
preferred to brood over his coarseness, his caddish ingratitude, his
irreligion. Out of these he constructed a repulsive figure, forgetting
how slovenly his own perceptions had been during the past week, how
dogmatic and intolerant his attitude to all that was not Love.

During the packing he was obliged to go up to the attic to find the
Dryad manuscript which had never been returned. Leighton came too, and
for about half an hour they hunted in the flickering light of a candle.
It was a strange, ghostly place, and Rickie was quite startled when a
picture swung towards him, and he saw the Demeter of Cnidus, shimmering
and grey. Leighton suggested the roof. Mr. Stephen sometimes left
things on the roof. So they climbed out of the skylight--the night was
perfectly still--and continued the search among the gables. Enormous
stars hung overhead, and the roof was bounded by chasms, impenetrable
and black. "It doesn't matter," said Rickie, suddenly convinced of the
futility of all that he did. "Oh, let us look properly," said Leighton,
a kindly, pliable man, who had tried to shirk coming, but who was
genuinely sympathetic now that he had come. They were rewarded: the
manuscript lay in a gutter, charred and smudged.

The rest of the year was spent by Rickie partly in bed,--he had a
curious breakdown,--partly in the attempt to get his little stories
published. He had written eight or nine, and hoped they would make up
a book, and that the book might be called "Pan Pipes." He was very
energetic over this; he liked to work, for some imperceptible bloom had
passed from the world, and he no longer found such acute pleasure in
people.