"A world of which you have an even poorer opinion than you used to have when you lived in it yourself!"
He smiled. "Anyhow, I am no longer in it. Nor ever shall go back."
A startled look passed over her face. "You don't mean that you intend to stay here—forever?"
"Not quite that. But I mean to do this sort of work, rather than the sort I began with. To do it I must live much as I am living now, where ever that may be. Now—what about the envy of me you profess?"
He turned, still smiling, at the little sound he caught from her half-closed lips.
"Are you happy in such a decision?" she murmured.
"Do I look like an unhappy man?"
She shook her head. "That's what I have been noticing about you ever since I came. You did look unhappy when you went away. Now, you don't. And it is the look on your face which gives me the sense of envy."
Brown gave one quick glance at the rest of the party. "Do you mean to say," he questioned, very low, "that you are not happy?"
"Does that seem so strange?"