“It’d be a queer world if everybody were like you.”

“It’d be a queer world if everybody were like any particular person,” retorted Lorry.

Arthur’s mind continually returned to this story, to revolve it, to find some new suggestion as to what was stupid or savage or silly in the present social system, as to what would be the social system of to-morrow, which is to to-day’s as to-day’s is to yesterday’s; for Lorry and Dr. Schulze and Madelene and his own awakened mind had lifted him out of the silly current notion that mankind is never going to grow any more, but will wear its present suit of social clothes forever, will always creep and totter and lisp, will never learn to walk and to talk.  He was in the habit of passing Estelle’s shop twice each day—­early in the morning, when she was opening, again when the day’s business was over; and he had often fancied he could see in her evening expression how the tide of trade had gone.  Now, he thought he could tell whether it was to be one of Lorry’s evenings or not.  He understood why she had so eagerly taken up Henrietta Hastings’s suggestion, made probably with no idea that anything would come of it—­Henrietta was full of schemes, evolved not for action, but simply to pass the time and to cause talk in the town.  Estelle’s shop became to him vastly different from a mere place for buying and selling; and presently he was looking on the other side, the human side, of all the shops and businesses and material activities, great and small.  Just as a knowledge of botany makes every step taken in the country an advance through thronging miracles, so his new knowledge was transforming surroundings he had thought commonplace into a garden of wonders.  “How poor and tedious the life I marked out for myself at college was,” he was presently thinking, “in comparison with this life of realities!” He saw that Lorry, instead of being without ambitions, was inspired by the highest ambitions.  “A good son, a good lover, a good workman,” thought Arthur.  “What more can a man be, or aspire to be?” Before his mind’s eyes there was, clear as light, vivid as life, the master workman—­his father.  And for the first time Arthur welcomed that vision, felt that he could look into Hiram’s grave, kind eyes without flinching and without the slightest inward reservation of blame or reproach.

It was some time before the bearing of the case of Lorry and Estelle upon the case of Arthur and Madelene occurred to him.  Once he saw this he could think of nothing else.  He got Lorry’s permission to tell Madelene; and when she had the whole story he said, “You see its message to us?”

And Madelene’s softly shining eyes showed that she did, even before her lips had the chance to say, “We certainly have no respectable excuse for waiting.”

“As soon as mother gets the office done,” suggested Arthur.

* * * * *