His heart contracted, but he interrupted her gaily. "I decline to be scheduled in that fashion. My manners are my own, thank Heaven! in spite of Galton on heredity. Oh! Marjory, my dear! what a relief it is to get away from it all--from the eternal hunt for something that escapes you--from the first chapter of Genesis to the Book of Revelation; and now that I come to think of it, there is something new about you--what is it?" She shook her head hastily. "Nothing. You said that last time, I believe--people always look different. You have got greyer." He rubbed his close-cropped head disconsolately. "Have I?--well, I can't help it. I'm getting old." "Nonsense! And I won't have you say you are glad to get away from work--from the best work in the world! How can you tire of the only thing worth anything, and of the search for truth?" "Because I'm forty-three--more than double your age. By the way, there was a man I know who married a girl of sixteen when he was thirty-two. And when he saw it down on the register it struck him all of a heap that when she was forty he would be eighty. Matrimony, apparently, isn't good for arithmetic--nor for the matter of that, arithmetic for matrimony!" "What silly stories you have, Tom," laughed the girl, "and in other ways you really are so sensible." He rose suddenly and went to the window--a small, slight man, with a keen brown face--and then, as if in excuse for the move, he picked a spray or two of white jasmine and stuck them in his buttonhole. Then he turned to her with a smile. "I should have been a deal more sensible if people hadn't taught me things when I was young. Original sin isn't in it with education. Come, Marjory! let us go and find my cousin--or there will be a row in the house." "I like that!" retorted the girl, taking possession of his arm; "as if anyone in the place dare say a word against you. Why, she told Dr. Macrea the other day that she didn't intend to die till she could have you to attend her!" Whereat they both laughed. But, in truth, there was much laughter and general good-will at the Lodge that evening, when Dr. Kennedy insisted on Mrs. Cameron bringing her knitting to the garden bench, while he and Marjory and Will strolled about among the flowers, or stood talking here and there as the fancy took them. "Why do you always wear jasmine, Tom?" asked the girl, idly bending to catch a closer whiff of the buttonhole. "I suppose _she_ used to give it to you." "What she?" "The one _she_ of a man's life, of course." "Fabulous creature! If they come at all, they come in crowds. Yes! now I think of it, I fancy you are right. I was twelve, and she a distracting young flirt of six. Her name was Pauline. I remember it, because she was the last!----" "Oh, Tom! how can you!" "Fact; for twenty years after that the responsibilities of searching for truth prevented my thinking of fictions." "And after that?"