"I have no reason to think she could care for me," said Sylvester hurriedly; "but--well, Lucy--of course you know I shall try--some day. And thank you." There was silence again, and then Lucian said-- "I'm going, as I told you, to try Toppings. That's what I have to look to. My mother will be glad my chance is over." "She wishes you to settle down?" "Yes, of course. I could never have anything said about the past--and _her_, from my mother's point of view; and knowing that she felt so strongly, has made a sort of separation. But I shall ask her if she likes to bring the girls to Toppings. The life there would suit her." "But, Lucy," said Sylvester, "why should you give up the white bears that you had set your heart on? Two years hence, as you said, is quite time enough for you to settle down at Toppings." Lucian was silent for a minute, then he said-- "I don't care much about the bears, so it's better to do what suits other people. Besides, I had rather know what happens to her, and I couldn't hear if I was in the Arctic regions." Sylvester sat up and looked at him. It had never occurred to him to think that Lucian suffered from solitude or want of sympathy, or indeed to think that his life had been permanently saddened by his disappointment. He had always believed the interests which he picturesquely symbolised as "white bears" to be enough for the strong, healthy, active youth; and even his faithfulness to Amethyst had seemed to Sylvester to spring more from a sense of what was due to himself, than from involuntary yearning for her. "I suppose," Lucian went on, before he could speak, "that you meant-- her--in that poem of yours all the time." "Well, yes," said Syl, half laughing, "I suppose I did." "Its quite true," said Lucian, "I couldn't say all that; but there seems nothing else to think of, and icebergs would make no difference at all." "I didn't think, Lucy, that you would spend your life in looking for the rainbow's end." "I shall not. There are plenty of things to do. But, since I misjudged her so, there can be no peace till she is happy. You see, at first, I felt as if I could never get over knowing that I had been wrong, when all the comfort I'd ever had in the matter, had been thinking that giving her up was the only right thing to do. I went once that wretched afternoon--right up to the Hall--and then I turned back, and thought I wouldn't be made a fool of--when all the while I was making a fool of myself." "We were all infernal fools," said Sylvester. "Then," said Lucian, "I remembered that it didn't matter so much about me, since I had found out that she was--what I'd always thought her. I'm glad now it was all my fault and not hers. Something in your poem put that into my head." He gave a little smile as he spoke, and Sylvester noticed for the first time how grave his face had grown. It had never been exactly lively, but surely the weight on the straight, clearly-marked brows was new.