CHAPTER XVIII.
"I suppose you have not settled yet as to what ship you will return by, Atherton?" Mr. Renshaw asked as the party were gathered in the verandah in the evening.
"No," Mr. Atherton replied, absently watching the smoke of his cigar as it curled up, "nothing is at all settled; my plans seem to be quite vague now."
"What do you mean, Mr. Atherton?" Mrs. Renshaw asked in surprise, for Mr. Atherton's plans were generally mapped out very decidedly. "How is it that your plans are vague? I thought you said two days ago that you should go down to Wellington about the 20th."
"I did not mean to say that they were vague, Mrs. Renshaw; did I really say so?"
"Why, of course you did," Mrs. Renshaw said; "and it is not often that you are vague about anything."
"That shows that you do not understand my character, Mrs. Renshaw," Mr. Atherton said in his usual careless manner. "I am the vaguest of men—a child of chance, a leaf blown before the wind."
Wilfrid laughed. "It would have taken a very strong wind when we first knew you."
"I am speaking metaphorically, Wilfrid. I am at London, and the idea occurs to me to start for the Amazon and botanize there for a few months. I pack up and start the next morning. I get there and do not like the place, and say to myself it is too hot here, let me study the Arctic flora at Spitzbergen. If I act upon an idea promptly, well and good, but if I allow any time to elapse between the idea striking me and my carrying the thing into execution, there is never any saying whether I may not go off in an entirely different groove during the interval."