"I like my work; I know it is the best thing my hand can find to do, and I am told I do it successfully. Then I am in touch with men of congenial minds. But happy—?" He paused, and looked out on the twilight deepening into night, with the fixed gaze in those large gray eyes which was so characteristic of him. "Happiness, I believe, depends greatly on physical conditions. I am not quite as strong as I should like to be. We have a splendid gymnasium. If I could take more athletic exercise than I do, I dare say I should have more even spirits."
Mrs. Courtly here joined them, and the little tête-à-tête was broken up. The lamps were brought in, the shutters closed. In the meantime Mrs. Planter, at the farther end of the room, was questioning Sir Mordaunt as to the new guest, whom Miss Ballinger appeared to know so well.
"Barham? I never heard of the name. It does not belong to any of our first families, anyhow."
"Well known in England," said Mordaunt, carelessly. "'Ingoldsby Legends,' you know."
"Do you mean there is any legendary lore connected with the Barhams? Well, they may have come over in the Mayflower, but I never heard them mentioned."
"No. I mean the author of 'The Jackdaw of Rheims,' and lots of other things—awfully good fun, you know—was a parson, named Barham."
"Oh! a minister—oh! And what is this young man?"
"A professor, I believe."
"He does not look like a well man. So very—"
"Yes, very," echoed Ballinger, impatiently. "But he makes up in brains, I am told, what he wants in flesh and muscle. My sister thinks a great deal of him. He is not my sort of man; rather a prig, I think; but people have different tastes. Now she couldn't bear Gunning, whom I thought not half a bad fellow."