At the door she stopped and turned a twilight face to him. For a moment they scrutinised one another. To her he was no more than a dim outline. Impulsively he held out his arms.... Then at the sound of a movement downstairs she freed herself and hurried out. He heard her call "Mother! You're not to lay supper. You're to rest." He listened to her footsteps until the kitchen had swallowed them up. Then he turned his eyes to the Schema again and for a moment it seemed but a little thing. He picked it up in both hands and looked at it as if it was the writing of another man, and indeed it was the writing of another man. "Pamphlets in the Liberal Interest," he read, and smiled. Presently a train of thought carried him off. His attitude relaxed a little, the Schema became for a time a mere symbol, a point of departure, and he stared out of the window at the darkling night. For a long time he sat pursuing thoughts that were half emotions, emotions that took upon themselves the shape and substance of ideas. The deepening current stirred at last among the roots of speech. "Yes, it was vanity," he said. "A boy's vanity. For me--anyhow. I'm too two-sided.... Two-sided?... Commonplace! "Dreams like mine--abilities like mine. Yes--any man! And yet ...--The things I meant to do!" His thoughts went to his Socialism, to his red-hot ambition of world mending. He marvelled at the vistas he had discovered since those days. "Not for us--Not for us. "We must perish in the wilderness.--Some day. Somewhen. But not for us.... "Come to think, it is all the Child. The future is the Child. The Future. What are we--any of us--but servants or traitors to that?... * * * * * "Natural Selection--it follows ... this way is happiness ... must be. There can be no other." He sighed. "To last a lifetime, that is. "And yet--it is almost as if Life had played me a trick--promised so much--given so little!... "No! One must not look at it in that way! That will not do! That will _not_ do. "Career! In itself it is a career--the most important career in the world. Father! Why should I want more? "And ... Ethel! No wonder she seemed shallow ... She has been shallow. No wonder she was restless. Unfulfilled ... What had she to do? She was drudge, she was toy ... "Yes. This is life. This alone is life! For this we were made and born. All these other things--all other things--they are only a sort of play.... "Play!" His eyes came back to the Schema. His hands shifted to the opposite corner and he hesitated. The vision of that arranged Career, that ordered sequence of work and successes, distinctions and yet further distinctions, rose brightly from the symbol. Then he compressed his lips and tore the yellow sheet in half, tearing very deliberately. He doubled the halves and tore again, doubled again very carefully and neatly until the Schema was torn into numberless little pieces. With it he seemed to be tearing his past self.