“I believe it, sir:  and the kind of stout heart which I am afraid I haven’t got,” said the Major.

“What!” said the old man.  “Show the white feather before you’ve tackled the lady!  Fill the Major’s glass, Colonel.  I am quite sure we will none of us ever say die.”

“Not likely.  Not if we know it,” said the Colonel, stretching himself heartily inside his tunic.  He was becoming ruddier than the cherry.  All he cared about at the moment was his gay little port glass.  But the Major’s young cheek was hollow and sallow, his one eye terribly pathetic.

“And you, Mr. Sisson,” said Sir William, “mean to carry all before you by taking no thought for the morrow.  Well, now, we can only wish you success.”

“I don’t want to carry all before me,” said Aaron.  “I should be sorry.  I want to walk past most of it.”

“Can you tell us where to?  I am intrigued, as Sybil says, to know where you will walk to.  Come now.  Enlighten us.”

“Nowhere, I suppose.”

“But is that satisfactory?  Can you find it satisfactory?”

“Is it even true?” said the Major.  “Isn’t it quite as positive an act to walk away from a situation as to walk towards it?”

“My dear boy, you can’t merely walk away from a situation.  Believe that.  If you walk away from Rome, you walk into the Maremma, or into the Alban Hills, or into the sea—­but you walk into something.  Now if I am going to walk away from Rome, I prefer to choose my direction, and therefore my destination.”

“But you can’t,” said the Major.

“What can’t you?”

“Choose.  Either your direction or your destination.”  The Major was obstinate.

“Really!” said Sir William.  “I have not found it so.  I have not found it so.  I have had to keep myself hard at work, all my life, choosing between this or that.”

“And we,” said the Major, “have no choice, except between this or nothing.”

“Really!  I am afraid,” said Sir William, “I am afraid I am too old—­ or too young—­which shall I say?—­to understand.”

“Too young, sir,” said Arthur sweetly.  “The child was always father to the man, I believe.”

“I confess the Major makes me feel childish,” said the old man.  “The choice between this or nothing is a puzzler to me.  Can you help me out, Mr. Sisson?  What do you make of this this-or-nothing business?  I can understand neck-or-nothing—–­”

“I prefer the NOTHING part of it to the THIS part of it,” said Aaron, grinning.

“Colonel,” said the old man, “throw a little light on this nothingness.”

“No, Sir William,” said the Colonel.  “I am all right as I am.”

“As a matter of fact, so are we all, perfectly A-one,” said Arthur.

Aaron broke into a laugh.

“That’s the top and bottom of it,” he laughed, flushed with wine, and handsome.  We’re all as right as ninepence.  Only it’s rather nice to talk.”