Mr. Satterthwaite looked at him uncomprehendingly for a minute or two. Then he began suddenly to quiver all over like an aspen leaf. "What is this place?" he whispered. "What is this place?"
"I told you earlier today. It is _My_ lane."
"A 'Lovers' Lane,'" murmured Mr. Satterthwaite. "And people pass along it."
"Most people, sooner or later."
"And at the end of it--what do they find?"
Mr. Quin smiled. His voice was very gentle. He pointed at the ruined cottage above them. "The house of their dreams--or a rubbish heap--who shall say?"
Mr. Satterthwaite looked up at him suddenly. A wild rebellion surged over him. He felt cheated, defrauded.
"But _I_--" his voice shook. "_I_ have never passed down your lane."
"And do you regret?"
Mr. Satterthwaite quailed. Mr. Quin seemed to have loomed to enormous proportions. Mr. Satterthwaite had a vista of something at once menacing and terrifying. Joy, Sorrow, Despair.
And his comfortable little soul shrank back appalled.
"Do you regret?" Mr. Quin repeated his question. There was something terrible about him.
"No," Mr. Satterthwaite stammered. "N--No."
And then suddenly he rallied.
"But I see things," he cried. "I may have been only a looker-on at Life--but I see things that other people do not. You said so yourself, Mr. Quin."
But Mr. Quin had vanished.