A Man's World

Seminary, was passing some months in Europe. I bore in mind the Doctor's advice, avoided all arguments and mechanically observed the f

o talk them over with her. While I could not put down on paper what was uppermost in my heart, I found it very hard to fil

s for adults to be friends with children. The Doctor at school was the only man in whom I had ever confided. An

for me by my lack of sympathy with their religious conventions. It was imperative that they should not question God's will. The Mother did not want to die. The Father was, I am sure, broken-hearted at the thought of losing her. They kept up a brave attitude-to me it seemed a hollow pretense-that God was being very good to them, that he w

nis Theorie-trying to discover the confines of human knowledge, trying to decide for us what things are knowable and what we may not know-but above all their prattle, the fact of death stands out as one thing we all do know. Whether our temperaments incline us

you strike a man, you become angry; that if you laugh, it makes you glad. I would not now deny that they got some comfort from their attitude. But at the time, tossing about in my stormy sea of doubts, it seemed to me that they were all afraid. Just as well disciplined troops will wheel and mark time and

s, it seemed to comfort her if I sat by her bed-side and stroked her hand. Some mystic sympathy sprang up between us and she felt no need of pretense before me. I sat there and watched sorrow on her

from Margot. Why I had expected that she would sympathize with a

re were endless comparisons to be made between his school and mine. But at last Margot and I got free of them and off by ourselves in an arbo

Do you believe ever

of love. Two years before, when I ha

" she said,

it, I might have been content. Her unt

t," I g

do you

ay. I don't beli

arbor, where she had led me-her eyes wide with

ieve in God,

ed the existence of God, except, of course, the benighted heathen. Margot's hair is almost white now, but

rds I used. I had been out in a wider world than hers, had begun to meet the minds of men who thought. In that little mountain village, a second rate, rather mushy-

her eyes as I went on d

d-what you

e. Is tru

sten to you

ly I realized that

go. We're going to get married.

a man who doesn'

me to recant. I could not. Then two tears started down her cheeks. I wanted desperately to say something, but there were tears in my eyes also and

oped, as I did, that some way would be found

is portentous moment did not come till maturity. A Frenchman has said that after thirty we all become cynics. It is a vicious saying, but holds a tiny grain of truth. As we get older we become indifferent, cynical, in regard to phrases. The tragedy of youth is that it rarely s

e expected tears, and the black mourning clothes were abhorrent. I felt th

. I saw the Father standing alone in the doorway and I knew he was praying for me. I felt that I would never come back. I was sorry for the Father in the big empty house, but I had no personal regret, except Margot. The memory of the former leave-taking, how with her I had found the first realization of love, the first vague sensing of the mystic forces

ing out, I walked back into the woods and circled round to the side of the church. I put a board up under a window and looked in. There were other people there, but I saw only Margot. She was sitting apart from the laughter, weaving a wreath of ground-pine for the lectern. He

ing, it howled and shrieked through the pines and I caught some of its fierce exultation. The summe

berty, as reverently as if it had been a sacrament to the Goddess of Reason, I lit a cigarette. The tears were very close to my