“Oh, girl, girl,” he cried, when she had finished.  “Can’t you—­won’t you—­understand?  All that you seek is right here—­everywhere about you—­waiting for you to make it your own, and with it you may have here those greater things without which no life can be abundant and joyous.  The culture and the intellectual life that is dependent upon mere environment is a crippled culture and a sickly life.  The mind that cannot find its food for thought wherever it may be planed will never hobble very far on crutches of superficial cults and societies.  You are leaving the substance, child, for the shadow.  You are seeking the fads and fancies of shallow idlers, and turning your back upon eternal facts.  You are following after silly fools who are chasing bubbles over the edge of God’s good world.  Believe me, girl, I know—­God! but I do know what that life, stripped of its tinseled and spangled show, means.  Take the good grain, child, and let the husks go.”

As the man spoke, Kitty watched him as though she were intently interested; but, in truth, her thoughts were more on the speaker than on what he said.

“You are in earnest, aren’t you, Patches?” she murmured softly.

“I am,” he returned sharply, for he saw that she was not even considering what he had said.  “I know how mistaken you are; I know what it will mean to you when you find how much you have lost and how little you have gained.”

“And how am I mistaken?  Do I not know what I want?  Am I not better able than anyone else to say what satisfies me and what does not?”

“No,” he retorted, almost harshly, “you are not.  You think it is the culture, as you call it, that you want; but if that were really it, you would not go.  You would find it here.  The greatest minds that the world has ever known you may have right here in your home, on your library table.  And you may listen to their thoughts without being disturbed by the magpie chatterings of vain and shallow pretenders.  You are attracted by the pretentious forms and manners of that life; you think that because a certain class of people, who have nothing else to do, talk a certain jargon, and profess to follow certain teachers—­who, nine times out of ten, are charlatans or fools—­that they are the intellectual and spiritual leaders of the race.  You are mistaking the very things that prevent intellectual and spiritual development for the things you think you want.”

She did not answer his thought, but replied to his words.  “And supposing I am mistaken, as you say.  Still, I do not see why it should matter so to you.”

He made a gesture of hopelessness and sat for a moment in silence.  Then he said slowly, “I fear you will not understand, but did you ever hear the story of how ‘Wild Horse Phil’ earned his title?”

She laughed.  “Why, of course.  Everybody knows about that.  Dear, foolish old Phil—­I shall miss him dreadfully.”  “Yes,” he said significantly, “you will miss him.  The life you are going to does not produce Phil Actons.”