Page:Firecrackers a realistic novel.pdf/112

 glowing on his features, not unlike the flickering effulgence created by a halo.

So few, he responded sadly. Perhaps no one. I wonder if many actually try?

What, after all, does getting somewhere mean?

A new and lighter shade of feeling coloured his tone. Every one, I suppose, has his own peculiar ambitions, he averred; some desire happiness, others hanker after gold, some seek God, others, knowledge. There are those, even, who only want to forget. It seems to have occurred to no one, not even Jesus Christ or Napoleon, to aspire towards everything.

Campaspe regarded the youth with a new interest, and again she was struck by the illusion that an amber glow illumined his features. Was it, she wondered, an effect caused by the mounting of his blood under the rays of the lamp? At any rate, she believed she had never before seen such great beauty in a face, physical, spiritual, and mental beauty, and yet she observed something else there, too, dimming the glory, a suggestion of hideous pain and incessant struggle. She had made no comment after his last statement and, after a pause, he began again, Paul has at least taken a step. Before that he was only one thing, now he is on his way to many.

But I am not so sure, Campaspe argued, that many things will be good for Paul. He had his