“Well, anyway,” he urged, “you didn’t really mean _everybody_, did you?” “Seriously, Renfrew,” she said; “—seriously, I don’t understand how you can live the life you do.” “Why, I’m not living any life,” he said reproachfully. “I never did do anything very dissipated.” “I don’t mean that,” she returned impatiently. “I mean what are you doing with your mind, your soul, your spirit? You never have a thought that the common herd around us doesn’t have. You never read a book that the common herd doesn’t read, and you don’t even read many of _them_! What do you do with your time? I’m asking you!” “Well, the truth is,” he said meekly, “if you come right down _to_ it: why, most of the time I loaf around in our front yard waiting to see if you’re not coming out or anything.” His truthfulness did little to appease her. “Yes!” she said. “You sit hours and hours under that walnut tree over there in a perfect vacuum!” “Well, it _is_ like that,” he agreed, “when you don’t come out, Muriel.” “I’m not talking about anything of that sort!” she said quickly. “I mean, how can you bear to stay on such a plane? You don’t have to just sit down and live on what your grandfather left you, do you?” “Well, _but_,” he protested, “I told you I was thinking of trying to run for the legislature!” She stared at him. “Good heavens!” she said. “Do you think _that_ would be rising to a higher plane?” “A person has to begin,” he ventured to remind her. “Even at that, they tell me I probably couldn’t get nominated till I tried for it two or three times. They tell me I have to keep on going around till I get well known.” “Renfrew!” “Well, I haven’t made up my mind about it,” he said. “I see you don’t think much of it, and I’m not sure I do, myself. What do you think I ought to do?” “What do I think you ought to do?” she cried. “Why, do anything—_anything_ rather than be one of the commonplace herd on the commonplace plane!” “Well, what do I have to do to get off of it?” “What?” “I mean, what’s the best way for me to get on some other plane, the kind you mean? If you think it’s no good my trying for the legislature, what do you think I _had_ better do?” He asked for information; in all honesty he simply wanted to be told. “I just don’t know how to go about it,” he added; “I don’t know how to even start; that’s the trouble. What had I better do first?” Muriel stared at him; for in truth, she found herself at a loss. Faced with a request for grovelling details of the lofty but somewhat indefinite processes she had sketched, she was as completely a vacancy as could be found in all the cultural desert about her. “Really!” she said. “If you don’t know such things for yourself, I don’t believe you could ever find out from anybody else!”