Page:Across the Stream.djvu/270

260 youth of the world. Surely there was no further heaven than this possible, namely, to be young and to desire and to have desire gratified, and whet the appetite for more. There was no clearer duty in the day than to be bathed in the bliss of life, to suck out the last drop of sweetness from the world which had been created for the joy of men and the glory of God. There was no such thing as evil; evil was but the label attached by the sourminded to the impulses and acts for which they had not sufficient vitality.… And it was Martin who had taught him all this.

Archie had come back home this morning after a day and a couple of nights in town. He had bought Helena her wedding present, he had taken his completed manuscript to his publishers, he had dined and danced and supped, and filled the hours of day and night with the extravagant excesses in which up till now he had never indulged. Some innate fastidiousness or morality had led him to look on the looser pleasures of youth with disdain or disgust; now he smiled indulgently at himself for his narrow priggishness. How utterly wrong he had been to think that such things stained or soiled a boy; they had but caused him to realize himself and intensified existence for him. They were the exercise of the faculties and possibilities with which God had endowed him, and which were not meant to rust in disuse. It was right for him "richly to enjoy," as Martin had said: it was a crime against love and life to starve on a meatless diet.… Above all, he had seen Helena again, had confessed and recanted the bitterness he had felt towards her, and she had forgiven him, and welcomed him back "with blessings on the falling out, that all the more endears," as the prim little poem said.

Archie laughed quietly to himself and said aloud:

"But there weren't many tears," he added.