Behind her Helen left conflicting opinions. Mrs. Berkley was inclined to give her credit for her sweet consideration, but Joan was not sure of her. Again Helen walked with Kit in silence. She was affectionate in an unobtrusive way, like a kind sister. Kit, thinking her over as he dressed for dinner, was forced to acknowledge to himself that she could be very nice. CHAPTER XV _Opportunity_ Cleavedge was a place of comfortable averages; it did not offer brilliant opportunities in any direction. It was a pretty city, but not strikingly so; it gave many men an excellent living, but it did not afford them chances to amass great fortunes; its society, its library, its schools, its shops were all up to the average, but not beyond it. It was understood to be the height of impropriety for Cleavedgians to doubt that their city excelled all others of its size and rank. It was an article of their faith that Cleavedge had advantages of situation and climate unequalled by any other town of some seventy thousand population in the United States. Kit realized that he must decide upon his course in life. Temptation assailed him to let it all go. He was his aunt’s heir, provided that she did not disinherit him, and at the worst, he had the small income which his mother had left him. He did not rate himself high; there was no particular thing that he wanted to be, or to do. He knew that he could do well anything that demanded clear perception, accurate judgment, industry, fidelity; but these are characteristics universally applicable, and Kit did not recognize in himself any marked qualifications. The loss of Anne Dallas pushed him farther into quiescence. He was surprised to find himself deeply wounded. Effort seemed less than ever worth while in a world wherein he was to be denied what fell easily to other men’s share. Still there was in Kit Carrington that essential manhood that inspires human beings to strive, though the motive for striving has not been made clear to them. He was impelled onward in the spirit that he had shown when he was a young athlete in college; the spirit that has made Kipling popular; the shibboleth of “being a man,” of “standing by,” “not being a quitter,” though what the man is to stand by, what it is that he is not to quit, in what especial way and why he is to be a man are not formulated. If Kit had been asked to explain, he would have answered that you must play the game and be decent; so, decent he was, and therefore he knew that he must play the game, although he did not know its rules and he had lost his first heavy stake. He turned over in his mind the facts of his situation and made his decision. Until September he should not be able to act upon his decision; in the meantime, he lived his accustomed life, surprised to find it unfamiliar. Hitherto he had passed his days as a careless boy; he went heavily now where he had run lightly; it struck him as a curious way to find jolly Kit Carrington going about.