himself."

It was a long speech, and she delivered it in little gasps of oratory
which were brightened by her wonderfully kind smile and the heart--not to
say sentiment--which showed in her face. The sentiment, however, did not
prejudice Jean Jacques against her, for he was a sentimentalist himself.
His feelings were very quick, and before she had spoken fifty words the
underglow of his eyes was flooded by something which might have been
mistaken for tears. It was, however, only the moisture of gratitude and
the soul's good feeling.

"Well there, well there," he said when she had finished, "I've never had
anything like this in my life before. It's the biggest thing in the art
of being a neighbour I've ever seen. You've only been in the parish
three years, and yet you've shown me a confidence immense, inspiring!
It is as the Greek philosopher said, 'To conceive the human mind aright
is the greatest gift from the gods.' And to you, who never read a line
of philosophy, without doubt, you have done the thing that is greatest.
It says, 'I teach neighbourliness and life's exchange.' Madame, your
house ought to be called Neighbourhood House. It is the epitome of the
spirit, it is the shrine of--"

He was working himself up to a point where he could forget all the things
that trouble humanity, in the inebriation of an idealistic soul which had
a casing of passion, but the passion of the mind and not of the body; for
Jean Jacques had not a sensual drift in his organism. If there had been
a sensual drift, probably Carmen would still have been the lady of his
manor, and he would still have been a magnate and not a potential
bankrupt; for in her way Carmen had been a kind of balance to his
judgment in the business of life, in spite of her own material and