“Of course. But what I want is a character. There are no new plots, nor incidents, nor things of that sort, you know. Everything that’s ever happened has happened so often. But there are new characters. The end of the century, the sharp end of the century, is digging them up out of the sands of life--as you might dig up clams with a pointed stick.” “That’s bathos!” laughed Crowdie. “The sands of life--and clams!” “I wish you’d stick to your daubs, Crowdie, and leave my English alone!” said Griggs. “It sells just as well as your portraits. No--what I mean is that just when fate is twisting the tail of the century--” “Really, my dear fellow--that’s a little too bad, you know! To compare the century to a refractory cow!” “Crowdie,” said Griggs, gravely, “in a former state I was a wolf, and you were a rabbit, and I gobbled you up. If you go on interrupting me, I’ll do it again and destroy your Totem.” Katharine started suddenly and stared at Griggs. It seemed so strange that he should have used the very words--wolf and rabbit--which had been in her mind more than once during the morning. “What is it, Miss Lauderdale?” he asked, in some surprise. “You look startled.” “Oh--nothing!” Katharine hastened to say. “I happened to have thought of wolves and rabbits, and it seemed odd that you should mention them.” “Write to the Psychical Research people,” suggested Crowdie. “It’s a distinct case of thought-transference.” “I daresay it is,” said Griggs, indifferently. “Everything is transferable--why shouldn’t thoughts be?” “Everything?” repeated Crowdie. “Even the affections?” “Oh, yes--even the affections--but punched, like a railway ticket,” answered Griggs, promptly. Everybody laughed a little, except Griggs himself. “Of course the affections are transferable,” he continued, meditatively. “The affections are the hat--the object is only the peg on which it’s hung. One peg is almost as good as another--if it’s within reach; but the best place for the hat is on the man’s own head. Nothing shields a man like devoting all his affections to himself.” “That’s perfectly outrageous!” exclaimed Hester Crowdie. “You make one think that you don’t believe in anything! Oh, it’s too bad--really it is!” “I believe in ever so many things, my dear lady,” answered Griggs, looking at her with a singularly gentle expression on his weather-beaten face. “I believe in lots of good things--more than Crowdie does, as he knows. I believe in roses, and green fields, and love, as much as you do. Only--the things one believes in are not always good for one--it depends--love’s path may lie among roses or among thorns; yet the path always has two ends--the one end is life, if the love is true.” “And the other?” asked Katharine, meeting his far-away glance. “The other is death,” he answered, almost solemnly.