"I believe, after all, Alwyn, you don't really care for your fame!"
"Not in the least!" replied Alwyn, laughing. "Why should I?"
"You longed for it once as the utmost good!"
"True!—but there are other utmost goods, my friend, that I desire more keenly."
"But are they attainable?"—queried Villiers. "Men, and specially poets, often hanker after what is not possible to secure."
"Granted!" responded Alwyn cheerfully—"But I do not crave for the impossible. I only seek to recover what I have lost."
"And that is?"
"What most men have lost, or are insanely doing their best to lose"—said Alwyn meditatively.. "A grasp of things eternal, through the veil of things temporal."
There was a short silence, during which Villiers eyed his friend wistfully.
"What was that 'adventure' you spoke about in your letter from the Monastery on the Pass of Dariel?" he asked after a while—"You said you were on the search for a new sensation-did you experience it?"