he was glad that Alma and Sibyl no longer cared to meet; on the other, he could not understand what had caused this cessation of their friendship, and he puzzled over it.  But these idle fancies would pass away; they were already less troublesome.  A long country walk with Morton, during which they conversed only of things intellectual, did him much good.  Not long ago Morton had had a visit from an old Cambridge friend, a man who had devoted himself to the study of a certain short period of English history, and hoped, some ten years hence, to produce an authoritative work on the subject.

‘There’s a man I envy!’ cried Rolfe, when he had listened to Basil’s humorous description of the enthusiast.  ’It’s exactly what I should like to do myself.’

‘What prevents you?’

’Idleness —­ irresolution —­ the feeling that the best of my life is over.  I have never been seriously a student, and it’s too late to begin now.  But if I were ten years younger, I would make myself master of something.  What’s the use of reading only to forget?  In my time I have gone through no small library of historical books —­ and it’s all a mist on the mind’s horizon.  That comes of reading without method, without a purpose.  The time I have given to it would have made me a pundit, if I had gone to work reasonably.’

‘Isn’t my case the same?’ exclaimed Morton.  ’What do I care!  I enjoyed my reading and my knowledge at the time, and that’s all I ever expected.’

’Very well —­ though you misrepresent yourself.  But for me it isn’t enough.  I want to know something as well as it can be known.  Purely for my own satisfaction; the thought of “doing something” doesn’t come in at all.  I was looking at your county histories this morning, and I felt a huge longing to give the rest of my life to some little bit of England, a county, or even a town, and exhaust the possibilities of knowledge within those limits.  Why, Greystone here —­ it has an interesting history, even in relation to England at large; and what a delight there would be in following it out, doggedly, invincibly —­ making it one’s single subject —­ grubbing after it in muniment-rooms and libraries —­ learning by heart every stone of the old town —­ dying at last with the consolation that nobody could teach one anything more about it!’

‘I know the mood,’ said Morton, laughing.

‘I’m narrowing down,’ pursued Harvey.  ’Once I had tremendous visions —­ dreamt of holding half a dozen civilisations in the hollow of my hand.  I came back from the East in a fury to learn the Oriental languages —­ made a start, you know, with Arabic.  I dropped one nation after another, always drawing nearer home.  The Latin races were to suffice me.  Then early France, especially in its relations with England; —­ Normandy, Anjou.  Then early England, especially in its relations with France.  The end will be a county, or a town —­ nay, possibly a building.  Why not devote one’s self to the history of a market-cross?  It would be respectable, I tell you.  Thoroughness is all.’