Page:Adams - Essays in Modernity.djvu/78

66 'And you fought—and won?'

"And I fought—and won!'

Hastings dropped his face moodily.

'I do not understand your issue clearly,' he said. 'It seems to me pedantic, and to inflict all that suffering for pedantry was surely criminal.'

'Let us discuss the question in the abstract,' said Daniel, 'up in our starry turret after dinner. For here we are at the avenue, and the avenue, not being a "palatial" one, will lead us home in a minute or two.'

Some hours later, the two men were lying in easy wicker lounges before one of the bay-windows of the northern turret. The faint glimmer of a single shaded taper left visible the glory of the clear and star-studded night beyond, and, as Hastings said, gave faintly the suggestion of the huge, dark surface of the revolving earth-ball, which seemed to be dipping down over the far eastern horizon, while they followed it towards the line of the swiftly gliding dawnlight.

'You are happy here,' he said suddenly, after a long pause; 'or you seem so. With such a wife, such children, such a home, and a life-work which satisfies your conscience, I might think of you once more in the same cowardly spirit as I did as a lad, as of one