When Winnie came home from the casino this evening, having some minutes to spare before dressing for dinner, she went on to the hotel balcony, which overlooks the town from a loftier and, so to say, a more condescending altitude than the garden. She rested her elbows on the balcony and surveyed the beauty of the scene, so artfully composed of hill and slope and sea that one can hardly conceive it the outcome of nature's mere--and probably violent--caprice. She was lost in thought, and was startled to find elbows on a level with hers and a head in close neighbourhood, though rather lower. She recognized 'Dolly'--in the shabbiest of all suits, looking meditatively down on the lights of the town and harbour of Funchal. "Quite a small place, Miss Wilson," said 'Dolly.' "Full of people!" "I suppose it is," Winnie agreed politely. She had come out on the balcony occupied with another question than the population of Madeira. "I tried to understand things once--to grasp them in the large, you know. Seems easy to some people, but I couldn't do it. I teach history. I was a bit overworked; some of my friends subscribed to send me out here for just a fortnight. Doing me good." Winnie turned her face towards the funny jerky little man. "Are you going to grasp things in the large when you get back?" she asked. "No, no; I'm afraid not. Thirty thousand or so of them down there, I suppose! All thinking they're very important. All being born, or dying, or love-making, or starving, or filling their bellies, and so on. Quite a small place!" Winnie smiled. "Yes, I dare say. It sounds true, but rather trite. I have problems of my own, Mr. Wigram." "So have I--income, and taxation, and necessary expenditure. Still, these thirty thousand are interesting." "They're awfully lucky to want very few clothes and hardly any fires, and to live in such a beautiful place. What do you mean by things in the large, Mr. Wigram?" "Well, I mean truth," said the absurd little man, clutching the balcony railings, just as if he were going to vault over them and crack his skull on the nut-shaped stones which served for a path thirty or forty feet beneath. "Truth is things in the large, you know." "I don't think I know that, but I know a friend in England who talks rather like you." "Poor devil! How much money does he make?" "He's got independent means, Mr. Wigram." "Then he can afford to talk a great deal better." "You really make me rather uncomfortable. Surely everybody can say what they like nowadays?" The little man gave an abrupt hoarse laugh. "I teach history in a school, and get a hundred and fifty pounds a year for it. Can I say what I like? Do I tell the truth about the history? Oh dear, no!" "I've got just a hundred and fifty pounds a year. Can I do what I like?" asked Winnie.