Gard's face was whiter and thinner than of old. It was noticeably white, with heavy eyelids, and the peculiar curve of hair-line that Moselle once noticed. One might fancy a trace of the cloister in it, not in anything that could be called clerical, but in something that could be called isolated. If there is manifestation in all faces of the spirit within, it would have seemed to manifest a certain separateness; as if, having learned in the cloister, at the age when one takes fundamental impressions, that a man is nothing else noticeable than a soul alone, with the eternities watching and the one issue of its salvation before it, he had never been rid of that sense of things, but had only altered his conception of the issue, and so the terms of description and the method of pursuit. This sense of things, of life as a kind of personal adventure, a kind of fortune-hunting after an ideal of self-culture, an ambition for a mental career rather than one apparent outwardly to men, may have sprung from far back in his nature and been of precloistral origin, come slowly of late years to a theory. The peculiarity of his coming, as one dropped out of a darker cloud than most men come from into the light of consciousness, may have added to this dim sense of isolation, of adventure, of destiny experimenting more definitely with him, of eternities more watchful. Not that he compared himself in that way with other men. The comparison, if it had occurred to him, would not have seemed interesting, or bearing on the issue. To each belonged his independent adventure; each was at the same time an end to himself and a means to other people. Such progress and pilgrimage had its own perils, excitements, and new landscapes opening unexpectedly. The picture that remained in Gard's mind of Mrs. Mavering and Helen seemed to him significant of something--Helen looking up with question and appeal to the older woman, the coloring, the firelight. She had brave eyes, that girl. One ought to see more of women. Mrs. Mavering looked like a kind of imperial exile. He sat down at the piano and touched a key thoughtfully. They signified something, surely, if one could put it into form. He wondered what had become of Mavering. Fritz Moselle was growing apoplectic, and people were talking about war. If old orders were changing, it was probably time they changed. Chapter IX Of Estates in Happiness "In point of fact," said Thaddeus, "I am proposing a partnership, to be entitled 'The Helen Banking and Brokerage Company,' organized to do business for a commission." "I don't know that I understand," said Mrs. Mavering, slowly. "We make investments at interest, speculate in futures, examine securities." He paused, seeking precision of phrase. "It is in terms of happiness. One pursues it--happiness. One sees fortunes in it lost and fortunes won. I find I have spent my own capital. I have to be content with a commission."