"Tell me," she said again in curious inquiry; "you are not one of Roper's set?" "No, he is some years my junior." "But that does not make any difference. You never belonged to Roper's set. Isn't it very dull being a grind? Roper says you are a dig and fearfully clever." "One must play for something." He waived aside the compliment. "But how do you do it? Tell me just what you do every day." Thornton was willing to take her seriously. He sketched his humdrum labors, the prizes in his way of life. "And it isn't so stupid," he ended with a laugh, "to play the game that way when once you have begun it." He added carelessly, as if to himself, "the body will give you only a few sensations, such a very few, and so humiliatingly inadequate." "So _we_ live for the body," the girl said, sharply, diving into his meaning. "How do I know?" Thornton replied, irritated at his foolish remark. "No you meant it; you meant it, and I suppose it is so. But one feels the body so constantly. Neuralgia racks me, and fatigue. Some days one would do anything to satisfy the cravings of that same body you seem to think we shouldn't pamper." "If you give in you must do more another time," he added a little solemnly. "How you must despise us!" Her eyes flashed suddenly. "You live coolly, tranquilly on for something at the end, never, never forgetting to have balance." "Nonsense, I am blue at times, and life is tame." "And we stumble about with our senses, making a muddle of our earth." "Here is the carriage already!" It was a relief to find an excuse to break away. "You will not come again, I fancy?" she asked, simply. An hour ago he would have answered yes, meaning in his heart never. Now the unsolved woman opposite prompted him to say: "If you want to see me again, if I may?" "Come down some, some week-day, when it is so quiet. We can have more talk, and I promise you it will do you good to mix with the herd occasionally." She laughed lightly. "The blood has run out," Thornton mused, as the cart rolled on through the gentle night. "This fellow here is a flabby lump. She has neuralgia and long stretches of apathy, and other ills. Her children stand to lose, if she ever has any. She has kept the frame of the splendid old stock, but in its house the nerves and tissues are morbid and she is waiting," he paused, and then the words came, "waiting for dissolution and endless rest." "Have another cigar?" His companion interrupted his musing.