"Savagely set on it!"
"You have really come to see that as the end of life?" Olga asked, regarding him curiously.
"The end? Oh, dear no! The means of life, only the means!"
Olga was about to put another question, but she met her mother's eye, and kept silence. All were silent for a space, and meditative.
They went out to walk together. Looking over the wide prospect from the top of the Downs, the soft English landscape, homely, peaceful, Otway talked of Russia. It was a country, he said, which interested him more the more he knew of it. He hoped to know it very well, and perhaps—here he grew dreamy—to impart his knowledge to others. Not many Englishmen mastered the language, or indeed knew anything of it; that huge empire was a mere blank to be filled up by the imaginings of prejudice and hostility. Was it not a task worth setting before oneself, worth pursuing for a lifetime, that of trying to make known to English folk their bugbear of the East?
"Then this," said Olga, "is to be the end of your life?"
"The end? No, not even that."
On their return, he found himself alone with Mrs. Hannaford for a few minutes. He spoke abruptly, with an effort.
"Do you see much of the Derwents?"
"Not much. Our lives are so different, you know."