Page:Tom Beauling (1901).pdf/116

 cursions of servants, the discipline of order which passes all understanding. Truly, your lady mother is the genius of housekeeping, and how easily she does it! And your father, that wise swayer of finance, how easily he pays the bills! I liked you all; the actualities of those present and the shadows—no, that is a somber word—the presences of those absent. Did you like me? I should love you to. Did you? No—not did you, but do you? And is it because I am a tramp—a do much and accomplish nothing—on the face of everything? I came to you from a black coal-mine; I left you—because I had to—for a bright beach of palms. To me, when I was little, that sort of thing used to shed halos of luminous romance around the heads of the people that did it—no matter how big the heads, or how little was in them—but it doesn't now. How black the coal-mine! How weary the beach of palms! But I believe in the bottom of my heart that you liked me. I am going to go through