Page:The Sacred Fount (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1901).djvu/129

 He stood a little with a thumb in each pocket of his trousers, and his melancholy eyes ranging far over my head over the tops of the highest trees. "Who am I to keep people going?"

"Why, you're just the man. Aren't you happy?"

He still ranged the tree-tops. "Yes."

"Well, then, you belong to the useful class. You've the wherewithal to give. It's the happy people who should help the others."

He had, in the same attitude, another pause. "It's easy for you to talk!"

"Because I'm not happy?"

It made him bring his eyes again down to me. "I think you're a little so now at my expense."

I shook my head reassuringly. "It doesn't cost you anything if—as I confess to it now—I do to some extent understand."

"That's more, then, than—after talking of it this way with you—I feel that I do!"

He had brought that out with a sudden sigh, turning away to go on; so that we took a few steps more. "You've nothing to trouble about," I then freely remarked, "but that you are as kind as the case requires and that you do help. I daresay that you'll find her even now on the terrace looking out for you." I patted his back, as we went a little further, but as I still preferred to stay away from the house I presently stopped again. "Don't fall 123