She stood up suddenly, measuring him with narrowed eyes.
"I do not understand," she began.
He shook his head. "Oh yes, you do. I'm sure of it. Sit down on the plinth there and I'll try and tell you what I mean."
So with the sphinx above her she sat and listened. It was not much he had to say. Only the half-whimsical half-serious thoughts of a man, who, almost without knowing it, had the seeing eye for the invisible, the hearing ear for the inarticulate, who felt, vaguely, that the best part of life lay beyond the boundary set to conscious life by the majority of men.
In formulated shape it was all new to her, but something in her, she knew not what, found it familiar, approved, and her face showed her approval, her interest.
"I see," she said slowly, "and the message is 'fear not' I like that."
"Yes!" he replied absently, clasping his hands over one knee and leaning back against the plinth to watch a cormorant that was coming back from fishing beyond the bar, a solitary swift, black speck upon the blue. "It would be good if one could get at it. We risk life every day for what we call love or money, but we are in a blue funk about the truth, because the truth is that neither love nor money--you know, don't you, that I am awfully, hideously rich?"
"Ted told me you were the richest man in England."
"The devil he did!" laughed Ned. "I beg your pardon, but that wasn't in the bond. Anyhow I'm beginning to feel as if I could with pleasure sell all that I have, and follow--something else."
"But you have no right," began Aura, "you can't shirk your responsibilities."