“That’s rather a rash promise to make to a professional vagabond like myself. When he has begged his way for months and months at a time, he comes to regard other people’s food as his by divine right.” “Have you done that?” she asked. “Much worse. You don’t keep chickens?” “Not here.” “That’s a good thing. I think I’m the world’s champion chicken-stealer. It’s a trick of legerdemain. You dive at a chicken, catch it by its neck, whirl it round and stick it under your jacket all in one action. The unconscious owner has only to turn his back for a second. Then, of course, you hide in a wood and have an orgy.” “He is not the desperate character he makes himself out to be,” said Olifant. “He spent two months with me at ‘The Towers’ without molesting one of your hens.” “Then you’re not still there?” she asked Triona. “Alas, no,” he replied. “I suppose I have the fever of perpetual change. I had a letter from Finland saying that my presence might be of use there. So I have spent this spring in Helsingfors. I am only just back.” “It seems wonderful to go and come among all these strange places,” said Olivia. “One land is much the same as another in essentials,” replied Triona. “To carry on life you have to eat and sleep. There’s no difference between a hard-boiled egg in Somerset and a hard-boiled egg in Tobolsk. And sleep is sleep, whether you’re putting up at Claridge’s or the Hotel of the Beautiful Star. And human nature, stripped of the externals of habits, customs, traditions, ceremonials, is unchanging from one generation, and from one latitude or longitude, to another.” “But,” objected Olivia, with a flash of logic, “if London’s the same as Tobolsk, why yearn for Tobolsk?” “It’s the hope of finding something different—the _ignis fatuus_, the Jack o’ Lantern, the Will-o’-the-Wisp——” He was silent for a moment, and then she caught the flash of his eyes. “It’s the only thing that counts in human progress. The Will-o’-the-Wisp. It leaves nine hundred and ninety-nine men out of a thousand floundering in a bog—but the thousandth man wins through to the Land of Promise. There is only one thing in life to do,” he continued, clenching his nervous hands and looking into the distance away from Olivia, “and that is never to lose faith in your _ignis fatuus_—to compel it to be your guiding star. Once you’ve missed grip of it, you’re lost.” “I wish I had your Russian idealism,” said Olifant. “When will you learn, my dear friend,” said Triona quietly, “that I’m not a Russian? I’m as English as you are.” “It’s your idealism that is Russian,” said Olivia.