He added, very seriously, “You infuriate me.”

Mr. Welles, pecking feebly at the ground, the heavy mattock apparently invested with a malicious life of its own, twisting perversely, heavily lop-sided in his hands, thought that this did not sound like a polite thing to say to a lady.  And yet the way Vincent said it made it sound like a compliment, somehow.  No, not that; but as though it were awfully important to him what Mrs. Crittenden did.  Perhaps that counted as a compliment.

He caught only a part of Mrs. Crittenden’s answer, which she gave, lightly laughing, as though she did not wish to admit that Vincent could be so serious as he sounded.  The only part he really heard was when she ended, “. . . oh, if we are ever going to succeed in forcing order on the natural disorder of the world, it’s going to take everybody’s shoulder to the wheel.  Women can’t stay ornamental and leisurely, and elegant, nor even always nice to look at.”

Mr. Welles, amazed at the straining effort he needed to put forth to manage that swing which Mrs. Crittenden did so easily, took less than his usual small interest in the line of talk which Vincent was so fond of springing on their neighbor.  He heard him say, with his air of always stating a foregone conclusion, something so admitted that it needed no emphasis, “It’s Haroldbellwrightism, pure and simple, to imagine that anything you can ever do, that anybody can ever do, will help bring about the kind of order you’re talking about, order for everybody.  The only kind of order there ever will be, is what you get when you grab a little of what you want out of the chaos, for your own self, while there’s still time, and hold on to it.  That’s the only way to get anywhere for yourself.  And as for doing something for other people, the only satisfaction you can give anybody is in beauty.”

Mr. Welles swam out of the breakers into clear water.  Suddenly he caught the knack of the upward swing, and had the immense satisfaction of bringing the mattock down squarely, buried to the head in the earth.

“There!” he said proudly to Mrs. Crittenden, “how’s that for fine?”

He looked up at her, wiping the sweat from his forehead.  He wondered for an instant if she really looked troubled, or if he only imagined it.  There was no doubt about how Vincent looked, as though he thought Mr. Welles, exulting over a blow with a mattock, an old imbecile in his dotage.

Mr. Welles never cared very much whether he seemed to Vincent like an old imbecile or not, and certainly less than nothing about it today, intoxicated as he was with the air, the sun, and his new mastery over the soil.  He set his hands lovingly to the tool and again and again swung it high over his head, while Vincent and Mrs. Crittenden strolled away, still talking. . . .  “Doesn’t it depend on what you mean by ’beauty’?” Mrs. Crittenden was saying.

CHAPTER VII