"You said just now you'd been dreaming, along of your mind, that was more than common full. Was it anything interesting in particular on your mind, or just life in general?" "Just life as it comes along I reckon." Enoch regarded him. "You be looking ahead, as you've the right to do. You're a man a thought out of the common in your understanding. You don't want to work for another all your life, do you?" "I never look much ahead. Sometimes the past blocks the future, and a man's often less ambitious at thirty than he was ten years before. I don't particular want a home of my own. A home means a lot of things I've got no use for." "Pretty much what some of the maidens think," said Enoch with craft. "For them a home means a man; and for us it means a woman, of course, because we can't very well establish anything to be called home without one. Orphan Dinah wants badly to be off, so Ben Bamsey, her foster-father, tells me. And yet he's in a quandary; because he feels that if a happy home were in sight for her, he'd far sooner she waited for it, a year or more, than left him to go somewhere else." "A very reasonable thought. But these things don't fall out as we want 'em to." They fenced a little, but Lawrence was very guarded and committed himself to no opinion of Dinah until Enoch, failing in strategy, tried a direct question. "What do you think of Orphan Dinah as a woman?" he asked. "I like her," answered the other frankly. "Since you ask, there's no harm in saying I think she's a very fine character. She haven't shone much of late, because there was a lot of feeling about what she done; and it's been made the most of I can see by women, and some men. But she's made it clear to me and to you, I hope, that she did right. She's built on a pretty big pattern and she's had a lot to put up with, and she's been very patient about it." "A bit out of the common you'd say?" "I think she is." "I may tell you, for your ear alone, Maynard, that she thinks very well of you." Lawrence tightened his lips. "No, no--don't you say that. She don't know me. I dare say, if she was to, she'd feel different." "Dinah can't hide herself from her foster-father's eyes," explained Enoch. "She don't try to for that matter, and Ben sees that there's something about you that interests her; and you've told me there be something to her that interests you. And what follows? I'm only an old man speaking, and you mustn't take offence whether or no." "There's no offence," answered Lawrence. "You'd not offend anybody. But I'd rather not have any speech about it, Mr. Withycombe." Enoch had said all he desired to say and learned all he wanted to learn. "And quite right and proper," he answered. "These things are very safe where they belong, and I wouldn't rush into a man's private affairs for money."