"
"That's right," said the young man, "anything is."
His face, which had looked for a moment merry and boyish, darkened
again, and his big eyes glowered intently at the shadowy hemlocks.
"Anything," he added, in a low voice, "but a sacrifice of principle,
a sacrifice of truth, as it actually is, to the petty conventions of
a rotten society!"
With that he sat his teeth hard and pulling a leather pouch out of
his pocket, began stuffing the pipe decisively. Caroline waited for
him to continue, but as he lit the pipe and puffed at it in
silence, she concluded that the interview was at an end, and started
up the path.
"You'd better not--" he began, but stopped suddenly and appeared to
reconsider. "Oh, I don't know," he added, "it might be better, after
all. Go along."
The trail was little more than a worn line in the grass, now; soon
it turned sharply to the left, skirted the wood, and led to a tiny,
dilapidated cottage. Caroline had more than once passed it by under
the impression that it was abandoned, or used perhaps for storing
ice or wood; but to-day a thin curl of smoke stained the blue above
it and through the open door of the one living-room that formed its
ground-floor she saw a scarlet Navajo blanket, on which reposed a
magnificent snowy Angora cat.
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