"I know," replied John Ames. "And, talking about that stumping overhead trick, if you were wantonly to knock a cripple off his crutch you would be voted the greatest brute on earth. Yet that same cripple will go into the room above yours, and, as you say, pound up and down for hours, or perhaps let fall that same crutch with a mighty bang upon the floor, totally callous to the possibility of there being some unfortunate wight underneath with shattered nerves, and generally seedy, and who would give his soul for a square night's rest. No; if you expect from other people any of the consideration they expect from you, you are simply laughed at for a fool, and a selfish one at that." "Oh, well, in life we have to give and take, I suppose," remarked the censorious one, with striking originality. John Ames smiled. He had an idea as to the sort of giving and taking this masterful person would be likely to practise, save in one quarter, that is; for he had not spent the time he had in the society of the two without detecting that she had at any rate one soft place, and that was Nidia Commerell. So he agreed easily, and the talk drifted on to other matters. It was pleasant out in the moonlight. The elder of the two ladies had pronounced herself tired when Nidia, whose freshness nothing seemed to impair, suggested strolling. John Ames was rather inclined to be silent as they wandered on, the light of the southern moon flooding down through the overshadowing firs, the balmy stillness of the night broken by distant snatches of shrill laughter and the chatter of voices from squalid coloured loafers on the main road. He was realising with a sort of pang at the heart how all this time would soon be behind him, as in a flash, only as an episode to look back to. The girl, noting his silence, was wondering whether it was a prelude to what she had airily termed "hoisting the signals," and, thus conjecturing, was surprised at herself and her lack of the usual eagerness to avoid them. "You are feeling much better than when you came down, are you not, Mr Ames?" she said softly. "Ever so much. I shall go back quite set up." Her practised ear detected the slightest suspicion of melancholy in the tone, while admiring the strength which controlled it. "What a strange life you must have to lead up there!" she went on; for he had told her a good deal about himself during the time of their acquaintanceship. "Oh yes. It gets monotonous at times. But then, I take it, everything does." "But it is such a useful life. And you have helped to open up the country, too." "Not I. That is left to other people." "But you were with the first expedition, and so of course you helped. I don't wonder you pioneers are proud of the part you took in extending the Empire. Isn't that the correct newspaper phrase? At any rate, it sounds something big."