"You shall be chained here," she repeated. "My uncle has a new theory of individualism. He thinks that if no one tried to improve anybody, the world would be so much more livable a place. Shall we sit at his feet?"
"I am not brave," he said, "but I am at least discreet."
"Do you think that you are?" she asked him quietly. "Do you think that you are discreet in the sense of being wise? Are you sure that you are using your gifts for the best purpose, for yourself--and other people?"
"No one can be sure," he replied. "I only follow my star."
"Then are you sure that it is your star?"
"No one can ever mistake that," he declared. "Sometimes one may lose one's way, and one may even falter if the path is rugged. But the star remains."
She sighed. Her eyes seemed to have wandered away. He felt that it was a trick to avoid looking at him for the moment.
"I do not want you to go to Manchester on Monday in your present mood," she said. "I hate to think of you up there, the stormy petrel, the apostle of unrest and sedition. If I were a Roman woman, I think that I would poison you to-night at dinner-time."
"Quite an idea," he remarked. "I am not at all sure that our having become too civilised for crime is a healthy sign of the times."
"I do wish," she persisted, "that you would try and see things a little more humanly. My uncle is full of enthusiasms about you. You have had some conversation already, haven't you?"
"We talked for an hour after luncheon," Maraton admitted. "Your uncle's is a very sane point of view. I know just how he regards me--a sort of dangerous enthusiast, a firebrand with the knack of commanding attention. The worst of it is that when I am with him, he almost makes me feel like that myself."
"All men of genius," she declared, "must be impressionable. We ought to set ourselves to discover your weak point."
He smiled at her with upraised eyebrows. There were times when he seemed to her like a boy.
She made a little face and swung her parasol around. When she spoke again, she was very grave.
"Mr. Maraton," she begged, "please will you promise that before you go away, you will talk to me again for a few minutes?"
"It is a promise easily made!" he replied.
"I will talk to you at any time, anyhow you wish," he promised.