“But does it?”

“He can’t help it.”

“It can’t go on, you know,” said Kraill, lighting a cigarette and throwing it down impatiently.

“I know.  That’s why I wrote you that letter.  He is so unhappy.”

Kraill made an impatient gesture.  Marcella stood up slowly.

“Are you tired?  You must be,” she said.

“No.  I want to see this thing settled,” he said.  She felt very hopeful to hear him speak so determinedly.

“It’s queer that you think as I do about that, Professor Kraill,” she said with a faint smile.  “People say other’s troubles are not their business.  But I think that’s a most wicked heresy.  I always interfere if I see people miserable.  I can’t bear to be blank and uninterested.”

“Neither can I. I often get disliked for it, however,” he said with a quick, impatient sigh.  “And they don’t often accept one’s interference.”

“I shall,” she said gently.  “I shall do whatever you tell me if it will make Louis well.  I think that is really all I care about in the world.  Sometimes, even, I think I care more about Louis than Andrew.  I’ve a feeling that he’s much more a little boy than Andrew is.  You know, all my life, since I saw my father very unhappy and ill, I’ve wanted to save people—­in great droves!  And now I’m beginning to think I can’t save one man.”

“And you think I can?”

“I’m quite sure of it.  People are not wise like you are just for fun.  But will you come along the clearing with me a little way?  I’m afraid our voices will waken Louis, and then he won’t get any sleep.  That is, if you’re really not tired.”

They went through the moon-silvered grass down to the lake.  She sat under the big eucalyptus which clapped its leathery hands softly.

“I was sitting here when I read your lectures—­the last ones—­and decided to write to you.  It is like—­like Mount Sinai to me now.  Will you talk to me out of the thunders, Professor Kraill?”

He looked at her for a moment, recalling the rather heart-breaking calmness and common-sense with which she had soothed Louis a while ago; he remembered her cool, patient logic in the midst of the drunken man’s ravings—­and he decided in a flash of insight that this rather rhetorical way of talking to him was very real to her.  She saw him with the dream-endowed eyes of the Kelt and, embarrassing though it might be to him, and unreal though it made him feel, he had to accept the fact that, for her, he was clothed in a sort of shine.  He saw, too, that she could not do without some sort of shine in her life.

“Tell me all about it,” he said.  “You don’t mind talking to a stranger about these things?”

“You have never been a stranger to me, Professor Kraill.  And I don’t believe there is such a thing as a stranger, really.  I like to think of the way the knights always went about ready to interfere with a good stout sword when they saw anyone in trouble.”