Page:The New Arcadia (Tucker).djvu/135

Rh "Indeed I should not. I should become dull as ditch-water, and miserable as a bandicoot."

"Do not say that, Frank. I like to think of you as the one single-minded man in the universe—doing good for the love of it."

"Then you do not care to be identified inseparably with my day-dreams?"

"Do not ask what I want. We try not to be introspective and self-contemplative."

"A high ideal, Maud! Are we succeeding?"

The girl looked furtively at her companion and averted her eyes, while the colour deepened on her cheeks.

"Maud, must there never be anything more?"

The words she had lately heard from another startled her.

"Is my vow, do you think, to be ever binding? I was young when I made it. We are both older now." He laid his hand on hers. She did not remove it. She hesitated. Then, with the tenacity of a good woman clinging to her ideal, she raised her eyes, after a pause, and answered—

"I could never be party to your breaking it, Frank."

"Then we must leave the question as it is, I suppose," replied the young man, withdrawing his hand with a sigh.

Gulping down the tender feelings arising in his breast, the young man joked and grimaced with his afflicted friends as though all. his life were wrapped up in making them happy. But it was not.

"I believe he is quite content in just performing his daily task," thought Maud, as she looked on, vexed with herself because the thought brought her no pleasure.

Amongst the domains of the inebriates, Gwyneth and Willie were moving.