The stone-carver stretched out his legs and lit a cigarette. “Sit down again, you old fool,” he said, “and let’s talk this business over sensibly.”
The recluse sighed deeply, and, subsiding into his former position, fixed a look of hopeless melancholy upon the sunlit landscape.
“The point is this, Maurice,” began the young man. “The first thing in these complicated situations is to be absolutely certain what one wants oneself. It seems to me that a good deal of your agitation comes from the fact that you haven’t made up your mind what you want. You asked my advice, you know, so you won’t be angry if I’m quite plain with you?”
“Go on,” said Mr. Quincunx, a remote flicker of his goblin-smile twitching his nostrils, “I see I’m in for a few little hits.”
Luke waved his hand. “No hits, my friend, no hits. All I want to do, is to find out from you what you really feel. One philosophizes, naturally, about girls marrying, and so on; but the point is,—do you want this particular young lady for yourself, or don’t you?”
Mr. Quincunx stroked his beard. “Well,”—he said meditatively, “if it comes to that, I suppose I do want her. We’re all fools in some way or other, I fancy. Yes, I do want her, Luke, and that’s the honest truth. But I don’t want to have to work twice as hard as I’m doing now, and under still more unpleasant conditions, to keep her!”
Luke emitted a puff of smoke and knocked the ashes from his cigarette upon the purple head of a tall knapweed.
“Ah!” he ejaculated. “Now we’ve got something to go upon.”
Mr. Quincunx surveyed the faun-like profile of his friend with some apprehension. He mentally resolved that nothing,—nothing in heaven nor earth,—should put him to the agitation of making any drastic change in his life.
“We get back then,” continued Luke, “to the point we reached on our walk to Seven Ashes.”