Privately he did feel unreasonably conceited about the rescue. He would have admitted that the impulse to gather Aitch and Zed beneath his prostrate form had been unconscious, but he considered that unconscious heroism proves heroism deeply ingrained. Nevertheless, the people who voice your conceit for you are only a little less trying than the people who relieve you of the duty of being humble. One must do these things for oneself. Mr. Dallas Tring was glad to have accomplished his duty, which was not spontaneous, but had been impressed upon him by his wife. Left to himself he would have said: “Say, that was good of you. I’d have been cut up if anything had happened to the kids.” His wife not having warned him how to proceed, he began now to talk about the banana crops. It was only towards the end of the interview that he risked himself once more upon the quicksands of emotion. “Look here, you know, it’s altogether unspeakable—what I owe you. Those are the only children we have. Aitch is a fine boy, don’t you think?” “Fine,” agreed the gardener, relieved to be allowed a loophole of escape from, “Not at all.” “You’re a fine boy yourself,” added Mr. Tring. “When you get well, will you come and help me?” “What to do?” “To start again.” “Oh, yes,” replied the gardener. “I love starting again. What I never can do is to go on.” After this the gardener, considered to be stronger, was allowed to see Mrs. Rust again. She was now but little better than a fretful echo of Courtesy. Some people seem born to walk alone, and others there are who are never seen without a group behind them. Courtesy was as far a leader of men as can be compatible with having no destination to lead them to. She never knew what it was to be without a “circle.” Acquaintances were as necessary to her as air, and she used them, as she used air, innocently for her own ends. Mrs. Rust never attained to the dignity either of being alone or the leader of a group, though she worshipped independence. She believed she had bought precedence of Courtesy for £200 a year. And on the occasion of this visit to the gardener, she believed that she was about to shock and surprise that wise young man. “Do you know what I have done?” she asked, when she had to some extent overcome the nervous cautiousness of behaviour impressed upon her by the absent Courtesy. “I do not,” said the gardener, whose gently irreverent manner towards her was his salvation in her eyes. “It’s sure to be something that any one else would be ashamed of doing.” Mrs. Rust bridled. “It was partly to annoy you that I did it,” she said. “Because you dared to advise me not to. I have sent my son Samuel a cheque, so as to launch his hotel.” “Rash woman,” protested the gardener. “If you knew your son Samuel as well as I do——” “I know he is my son, so he cannot be altogether a fool.” The gardener bent his thick threatening eyebrows upon her. “Do you know what else I have done?” she continued.