... He knew better where to begin now. The beginning was not in New York. The wallet was heavy upon him; he must not waste it; nor allow it to waste itself through bad management. Auckland was a desirable centre for the Stackhouse operations. He could travel forth from one agency to another. The fundamental ideas of trade, together with large knowledge of how trade should not be conducted, was his heritage from Lot & Company. He would begin slowly and sincerely to work out his big problems--holding the fruits loosely in his hands; ready to give them up to another, if that other should appear; contenting himself only with the simplest things; preparing always to be poorer, instead of richer.... He would earn the right to be poor. The thought warmed him, something of the natural strength of youth about it. Standing out of the wind with an expensive cigar, a superb course-dinner finished less than an hour back, Bellair smiled at the ease of poverty, welcoming all the details of clean, austere denial. Yet he was not so far from it as would appear. He had always taken these matters of luxury and satiety with tentative grasp; even the dinners of Stackhouse were but studies of life. His ideal was closely adjusted to the Faraway Woman’s in these things. One of the dearest of her sayings had to do with renting the two front rooms of the stone cottage. Yet now he hoped furiously that she had not yet done so. His thoughts turned again out among the Islands. He would meet the agents of Stackhouse. They would be bewildered at first; they would think he had come to peer and bite. He would lift and help and pass on--making the circles again and again, gaining confidence, not saying much. No, the thing he had in mind had little to do with words.... What a masonry among men--here and there one giving his best secretly. _No words about it._ Bellair halted and filled his lungs from the good breeze. This thought had repeated itself like a certain bright pattern through all the weave of his conception. It had a familiar look, and a prod that startled him now. The whole meaning of it rushed home, so that he laughed.