“But they feed you well, don’t they?” said the hermit, removing his hat and rearranging the cabbage-leaf so as to adapt it to the new angle of the sun. “And they don’t beat you. You haven’t to scrub floors or mend clothes. People, like you and I, must be thankful for being allowed to eat and sleep at all on this badly-arranged earth.” “I keep thinking of Italy,” murmured Lacrima. “I think it is your English ways that trouble me. I don’t believe--I can’t believe--they always mean to be unkind. But English people are so heartless!” “You seemed to like that Andersen fellow well enough,” grumbled Mr. Quincunx. “How can you be so silly, Maurice?” cried the girl, slipping through the gate in spite of its owner’s furtive glances down the road. “How can you be so silly?” She moved past him, up the path, and seated herself upon the edge of the wheel-barrow. “You can go on with your weeding,” she said, “I can talk to you while you work.” “Of course,” murmured Mr. Quincunx, making no effort to resume his labour, “you naturally find a handsome fellow like that, a more pleasant companion than me. I don’t blame you. I understand it very well.” Lacrima impatiently took up a handful of groundsel and spurge from the dusty heap by her side and flung them into the path. “You make me quite angry with you, Maurice,” she cried. “How can you say such things after all that has happened between us?” “That’s the way,” jeered the man bitterly, plucking at his beard. “That’s the way! Go on abusing me because you are not living at your full pleasure, like a stall-fed upper-class lady!” “I shan’t stay with you another moment,” cried Lacrima, with tears in her eyes, “if you are so unkind.” As soon as he had reduced her to this point, Mr. Quincunx instantaneously became gentle and tender. This is one of the profoundest laws of a Pariah’s being. He resents it when his companion in helplessness shows a spirit beyond his own, but directly such a one has been driven into reciprocal wretchedness, his own equanimity is automatically regained. After only the briefest glance at the gate, he put his arms round the girl and kissed her affectionately. She returned his embrace with interest, disarranging as she did so the cabbage-leaf in his hat, and causing it to flutter down upon the path. They leant together for a while in silence, against the edge of the wheel-barrow, their hands joined. Thus associated they would have appeared, to the dreaded passer-by, in the light of a pair of extremely sentimental lovers, whose passion had passed into the stage of delicious melancholia. The wind whirled the dust in little eddies around them and the sun beat down upon their heads. “You must be kind to me when I come to tell you how unhappy I am,” said the Italian. “You are the only real friend I have in the world.”