f his clothes had obviously
been slept in, if he knew Mrs. Failing, if he knew Wiltshire, and if
he could buy no tobacco--then the deduction was possible. "You do just
attend," he murmured.

The house was filling with boys, and Ansell saw, to his regret, the head
of Agnes over the thuyia hedge that separated the small front garden
from the side lawn where he was sitting. After a few minutes it was
followed by the heads of Rickie and Mr. Pembroke. All the heads were
turned the other way. But they would find his card in the hall, and if
the man had left any message they would find that too. "What are you?"
he demanded. "Who are you--your name--I don't care about that. But it
interests me to class people, and up to now I have failed with you."

"I--" He stopped. Ansell reflected that there are worse answers. "I
really don't know what I am. Used to think I was something special, but
strikes me now I feel much like other chaps. Used to look down on the
labourers. Used to take for granted I was a gentleman, but really I
don't know where I do belong."

"One belongs to the place one sleeps in and to the people one eats
with."

"As often as not I sleep out of doors and eat by myself, so that doesn't
get you any further."

A silence, akin to poetry, invaded Ansell. Was it only a pose to like
this man, or was he really wonderful? He was not romantic, for Romance
is a figure with outstretched hands, yearning for the unattainable.
Certain figures of the Greeks, to whom we continually return, suggested
him a little. One expected nothing of him--no purity of phrase nor
swift edged thought. Yet the conviction grew that he had been back
somewhere--back to some table of the gods, spread in a field where there
is no noise, and that he belonged for ever to the guests with whom he
had eaten. Meanwhile he was simple and frank, and what he could tell he
would tell to any one. He had not the suburban reticence. Ansell asked
him, "Why did Mrs. Failing turn you out of Cadover? I should like to
hear that too."

"Because she was tired of me. Because, again, I couldn't keep quiet over
the farm hands. I ask you, is it right?" He became incoherent. Ansell
caught, "And they grow old--they don't play games--it ends they can't
play." An illustration emerged. "Take a kitten--if you fool about with
her, she goes on playing well into a cat."

"But Mrs. Failing minded no mice being caught."

"Mice?" said the young man blankly. "What I was going to