"Would you think, then," I asked, with a smile, looking across the rug at him as we stood by the fire, "that the existence of a lion-tamer was quite the same as that of a maiden lady who kept cats?"
He laid down his paper suddenly and stared at me.
"I don't understand—I—you don't mean that you"—
"I mean," I said, "that it's extremely difficult to see the best course. Howard has just died, raving mad, for giving way to his impulses; I may die, raving mad, for controlling mine."
He looked at me apprehensively. "I am sorry, Victor, if—You don't think you have overworked, do you?"
I laughed as I met his eyes scanning my face anxiously for traces of the possible insanity.
"No; none of the slates are loose at present," I said. "That's all right, but I am seedy altogether; out of sorts all round—that's all."
CHAPTER VII.
One unbroken flood of golden sunlight lay like a fallen silken veil over the points and peaks of the downs, over the swelling sides and the soft rolling dip of the valley, and the still September blue stretched cloudless overhead. It was the late afternoon of the thirteenth, a day that had been hot, oppressive, stifling in town, but here was simply warm, still, and tranquil.