"'I wanted you to like it,' he says. 'We shall not be here much, you know, but we shall be here sometimes, and I'm glad if you feel the feeling of home, even with all these people about. It's all going very decently for to-night, thanks to Mrs. Emmons. Not a soul that we really wanted has failed us.' "'Except Mr. Insley,' Robin says. "'Except Insley,' Alex concedes, 'and I own I can't make him out. Not because he didn't come here. But because he seems so enthusiastic about throwing his life away. Very likely,' he goes on, placid, 'he didn't come simply because he wanted to come. Those people get some sort of mediæval renunciation mania, I believe. Robin,' he went on, 'where do you think you would like to live? Not to settle down, you know, but for the Eternal Place To Come Back To?' "'To come back to?' Robin repeated. "'The twentieth century home is merely that, you know,' Alex explained. 'We're just beginning to solve the home problem. We've tried to make home mean one place, and then we were either always wanting to get away for a while, or else we stayed dreadfully put, which was worse. But I think now we begin to see the truth: Home is nowhere. Rather, it is everywhere. The thing to do is to live for two months, three months, in a place, and to get back to each place at not too long intervals. Home is where you like to be for the first two weeks. When that wears off, it's home no more. Then home is some other place where you think you'd like to be. We are becoming nomadic again--only this time we own the world instead of being at its feet for a bare living. You and I, Robin Redbreast, are going to be citizens of the whole world.' "Robin looked over at him, reflective. And it seemed to me as if the whole race of women that have always liked one place to get in and be in and stay in spoke from her to Alex. "'But I've always had a little garden,' she says. "'A little what?' Alex asks, blank. "'Why, a garden,' she explains, 'to plant from year to year so that I know where things are going to come up.' "She was laughing, but I knew she meant what she said, too. "'My word,' Alex says, 'why, every place we take shall have a garden and somebody to grub about in it. Won't those and the conservatories do you?' "'I like to get out and stick my hands in the spring-smelly ground,' she explains, 'and to remember where my bulbs are.' "'But I've no objection to bulbs,' Alex says. 'None in the world. We'll plant the bulbs and take a run round the world and come back to see them bloom. No?' "'And not watch them come up?' Robin says, so serious that they both laughed. "'We want more than a garden can give,' Alex says then, indulgent. 'We want what the whole world can give.' "She nodded. 'And what we can give back?' she says. "He leaned toward her, touched along her hair.