"That is just what I think," said Harry; "the evil, perhaps, has run down, so to speak; it is nearly impotent. Oh, I am only joking. But if that is the price I have paid for my present happiness, I consider it dirt cheap. And if the Luck can give me more happiness, I hereby declare to the powers that work it that I will take any amount more on the same scale of charges."
Mr. Francis laughed, and took Harry's arm affectionately.
"Dear lad, you were only jesting, I know," he said. "But it is not well to dwell on such fantastic things too much, though we constantly remind ourselves that they are nonsense. The human mind is a very wonderful and delicate piece of mechanism, and if once we begin playing experiments with a thing of which we understand so little, it may get out of order, and strike the wrong hour, and fail to keep time. Lead your wholesome, honourable life, dear boy, and take gratefully what happiness comes in your way, and do not forget where it comes from. Then you will have nothing to fear from the Luck."
"No, and nothing to gain from it," said Harry, "for I suspect magic can not touch those who do not believe in it."
"Dear boy, enough," said Mr. Francis, with a certain earnestness. "You have told me you do not believe in it. Ah, what a wonderful evening! Look at those pink fleeces of cloud in the west, softer than sleep, softer than sleep, as Theocritus says. How I wish I was a painter! Think of the privilege of being able to show those sunset glories; to show, too, as the true artist can, the feelings, infinite and subtle, which those rose clouds against the pale blue of the sky produce in one, to show them to the toiler of the London streets. Ah, Harry, what a wealth of senses has been given us, what diverse-facing windows to our souls, and how little we trouble to look out of any, or to keep bright and clean even one! The gourmet even, the man who eats his dinner, using his palate with intelligence, is a step above most people. He has trained a sense, and what exquisite pleasure that sense, even though it be the most animal of all, gives him! And who can say that each sense was not given us in order that we should cultivate it to the fullest?"
Suddenly he raised his hat, and in a low, clear voice he cried: