Mannering laughed easily.
"How can you think me such a child?" he exclaimed. "If Rochester himself were to come to see me he would be as welcome as you are. In fact," he continued, more seriously, "if you could only realize, my friend, how peaceful and happy life here may be, amongst the quiet places, you would believe me at once when I assure you that I can feel nothing but gratitude towards those people and those circumstances which impelled me to seek it."
"What should you think, then," Borrowdean asked, watching his friend through half-closed eyes, "of those who sought to drag you from it?"
Mannering's laugh was as free and natural as the wind itself. He had bared his head, and had turned directly seawards.
"Hatred, my dear Borrowdean," he declared, "if I thought that they had a single chance of success. As it is—indifference."
Borrowdean's eyebrows were raised. He held his cigarette between his fingers, and looked at it for several moments.
"Yet I am here," he said slowly, "for no other purpose."
Mannering turned and faced his friend.
"All I can say is that I am sorry to hear it," he declared. "I know the sort of man you are, Borrowdean, and I know very well that if you have come down here with something to say to me you will say it. Therefore go on. Let us have it over."
Borrowdean stood up. His tone acquired a new earnestness. He became at once more of a man. The cynical curve of his lips had vanished.