“Borneo, Sumatra, the Malay Archipelago.”

“But what were you seeking in the Malay Archipelago?”

“What does one ever seek?  One seeks, no matter what; and, not being able to see you, Evelyn, I thought I would try to see everything in the world.”

“But there is nothing to see in Borneo?”

“Well, you will laugh when I tell you, but it seemed to me that I’d like to see the orang-outang in his native forests.  I had been to Greece, and I knew the Italian Renaissance—­”

“And after so much art to see an orang-outang in a tree would be a new experience, Owen.”

“Soon there will be no more higher apes, if medical science continues to progress; no more gorillas or chimpanzees.”

“In a world without gorillas life will not be worth living.  I quite understand.”

Owen laughed.

“I should be sorry for anything to disappear.  The poor mother is speared, for she will fight for her little one; ugly as he may be in our eyes he is beautiful in hers.”

“But you didn’t do this, Owen?”

“No; after two or three days in a forest one wearies of it; and after all it wasn’t very likely that I should have got a snapshot.  The camera is my weapon.”

“And after the orang-outang which you failed to meet?”

“I spent some time in Japan.”

“And then?”

“Well, then, I went to Manchuria, to the Amur, a country almost forgotten.”  And he told her how the eagles drove the wild sheep over the precipices, and of a wolf hunt with eagles.”

“You have seen now everything the world has to show?”

“Very nearly, and after seeing it all I come back to the one thing that interests me.”

Tears rose to Evelyn’s eyes; such an avowal of love a woman hardly ever hears.

The voices of the children playing in the garden reached their ears, and Evelyn said: 

“They should have been in bed long ago, but, Owen, your being here makes everything so exceptional.”

“Really?  I’m glad of that,” he answered shyly, fearing to say anything which would carry her thoughts back among unpleasant memories.  But it was quite safe to speak of her love of the poor, and of poor children.  “What inspired you to start this home, Evelyn?”

“Well, you see, I had to have something to work for, some interest; and not having any children of my own...  They really must go to bed.”

“But, Evelyn, why will you interrupt our talk?  Let us go on talking; tell me about the convent.  Your adventures are so much more wonderful than mine.  You haven’t half told me what there is to tell—­the Prioress and the sub-Prioress, you never liked her?”

A smile gathered about her lips, and he asked her what she was smiling at; and it was with some difficulty he persuaded her to tell him about Sister Winifred and Father Daly.”

“Counterparts! counterparts!” he said.  “And Cecilia giving the whole show away because her counterpart was a dwarf!  How could you live among such babies?”