“Je m'en fiche,” said Prosper Profond. Soames did not say “Je m'en fiche”—it was French, and the fellow was a thorn in his side—but deep down he knew that change was only the interval of death between two forms of life, destruction necessary to make room for fresher property. What though the board was up, and cosiness to let?—some one would come along and take it again some day.
And only one thing really troubled him, sitting there—the melancholy craving in his heart—because the sun was like enchantment on his face and on the clouds and on the golden birch leaves, and the wind's rustle was so gentle, and the yewtree green so dark, and the sickle of a moon pale in the sky.
He might wish and wish and never get it—the beauty and the loving in the world!
