"He's quite right to do nothing in a hurry--to take advice and compare ideas and points of view--to collect and classify his material in advance," Halidon argued, in answer to a taunt of mine about Paul's perpetually reiterated plea that he was still waiting for So-and-so's report; "but now that the plan's mature--and _such_ a plan! You'll grant it's magnificent?--I should think he'd burn to see it carried out, instead of pottering over it till his enthusiasm cools and the whole business turns stale on his hands." That summer Ambrose went to Europe, and spent his holiday in a frugal walking-tour through Brittany. When he came back he seemed refreshed by his respite from business cares and from the interminable revision of his cherished scheme; while contact with the concrete manifestations of beauty had, as usual, renewed his flagging ardour. "By Jove," he cried, "whenever I indulged my unworthy eyes in a long gaze at one of those big things--picture or church or statue--I kept saying to myself: 'You lucky devil, you, to be able to provide such a sight as that for eyes that can make some good use of it! Isn't it better to give fifty fellows a chance to paint or carve or build, than to be able to daub canvas or punch clay in a corner all by yourself?'" "Well," I said, when he had worked off his first ebullition, "when is the foundation stone to be laid?" His excitement dropped. "The foundation stone--?" "When are you going to touch the electric button that sets the thing going?" Paul, with his hands in his sagging pockets, began to pace the library hearth-rug--I can see him now, setting his shabby red slippers between its ramified cabbages. "My dear fellow, there are one or two points to be considered still--one or two new suggestions I picked up over there--" I sat silent, and he paused before me, flushing to the roots of his thin hair. "You think I've had time enough--that I ought to have put the thing through before this? I suppose you're right; I can see that even Ned Halidon thinks so; and he has always understood my difficulties better than you have." This insinuation exasperated me. "Ned would have put it through years ago!" I broke out. Paul pulled at his straggling moustache. "You mean he has more executive capacity? More--no, it's not that; he's not afraid to spend money, and I am!" he suddenly exclaimed. He had never before alluded to this weakness to either of us, and I sat abashed, suffering from his evident distress. But he remained planted before me, his little legs wide apart, his eyes fixed on mine in an agony of voluntary self-exposure.