There seemed to Rowland something intensely serious in the scene in which he had just taken part.

He had laughed and talked and braved it out in self-defense; but when he reflected that he was really meddling with the simple stillness of this little New England home, and that he had ventured to disturb so much living security in the interest of a far-away, fantastic hypothesis, he paused, amazed at his temerity.

It was true, as Cecilia had said, that for an unofficious man it was a singular position.

There stirred in his mind an odd feeling of annoyance with Roderick for having thus peremptorily enlisted his sympathies.

As he looked up and down the long vista, and saw the clear white houses glancing here and there in the broken moonshine, he could almost have believed that the happiest lot for any man was to make the most of life in some such tranquil spot as that.