"Queer, looking back across all that time at 'em, isn't it? How do you feel about it?"
"In a mixed kind of way, I think; the usual thing: pleasure and regret mingled."
"Oh, you have regrets, have you?"
"For certain things, yes. Not, let me say, my turn-up with you, Marsden," he laughed. "That's why I chose the old place—" he gave a glance round at its glittering newness. "Do you happen to remember what all that was about? I've only the vaguest idea."
Marsden gave him a long look. "That all?" he asked.
"Oh, I remember in a sort of way. That 'Romantic' soap-bubble of yours was really at the bottom of it, I suspect. Tell me," he smiled, "did you really suppose Life could be lived on those mad lines you used to lay down?"
"My life," said Marsden calmly, "has been."
"Not literally."
"Literally."
"You mean to say that you haven't outgrown that?"