"My young friend," he said, "did you ever hear a quaint Asiatic legend—scarcely a legend, perhaps, but a superstition—that many and many a wise man, four thousand years ago, spent his nights and his days, not as our more modern scientists of a few hundred years ago have done, in the attempt to turn baser metals into gold, but in the attempt to constitute from simple elements the perfect food for man?"

Burton shook his head. He was somewhat mystified.

"I have never heard anything of the sort," he acknowledged.

"The whole literature of ancient Egypt and the neighboring countries," Mr. Cowper proceeded, "abounds with mystical stories of this perfect food. It was to come to man in the nature of a fruit. It was to give him, not eternal life—for that was valueless—but eternal and absolute understanding, so that nothing in life could be harmful, nothing save objects and thoughts of beauty could present themselves to the understanding of the fortunate person who partook of it. These pages which you have brought to me to translate are concerned with this superstition. The writer claims here that after centuries of research and blending and grafting, carried on without a break by the priests of his family, each one handing down, together with an inheritance of his sacerdotal office, many wonderful truths respecting the growth of this fruit,—the writer of these lines claims here, that he, the last of his line, has succeeded in producing the one perfect food, from which everything gross is eliminated, and whose spiritual result upon a normal man is such as to turn him from a thing of clay into something approaching a god."

"Does he mention anything about beans?" Burton asked anxiously.

Mr. Cowper nodded benignantly.

"The perfect food referred to," he said, "appears to have been produced in the shape of small beans. They are to be eaten with great care, and to ensure permanency in the results, a green leaf of the little tree is to follow the consumption of the bean."

Burton sprang to his feet.

"A thousand thanks, professor!" he cried. "That is the one thing we were seeking to discover. The leaves, of course!"

Mr. Cowper looked at his visitor in amazement.

"My young friend," he said, "are you going to tell me that you have seen one of these beans?"

"Not only that but I have eaten one," Burton announced,—"in fact I have eaten two."

Mr. Cowper was greatly excited.

"Where are they?" he exclaimed. "Show me one! Where is the tree? How did the man come to write this? Where did he write it? Let me look at one of the beans!"

Burton produced the little silver snuff-box in which he carried them. With his left hand he kept the professor away.

"Mr. Cowper," he said, "I cannot let you touch them or handle them. They mean more to me than I can tell you, yet there they are. Look at them. And let me tell you this. That old superstition you have spoken of has truth in it. These beans are indeed a spiritual food. They alter character. They have the most amazing effect upon a man's moral system."

"Young man," Mr. Cowper insisted, "I must eat one."

Burton shook his head.

"Mr. Cowper," he said, "there are reasons why I find it very hard to deny you anything, but as regards those three beans, you will neither eat one nor even hold it in your hand. Sit down and I will tell you a story which sounds as though it might have happened a thousand years ago. It happened within the last three months. Listen."

Burton told his story with absolute sincerity. The professor listened with intense interest. It was perhaps strange that, extraordinary though it was, he never for one moment seemed to doubt the truth of what he heard. When Burton had finished, he rose to his feet in a state of great excitement.

"This is indeed wonderful," he declared. "It is more wonderful, even, than you can know of. The legend of the perfect food appears in the manuscripts of many centuries. It antedates literature by generations. There is a tomb in the interior of Japan, sacred to a saint who for seventy years worked for the production of this very bean. That, let me tell you, was three thousand years ago. My young friend, you have indeed been favored!"

"Let me understand this thing," Burton said, anxiously. "Those pages say that if one eats a green leaf after the bean, the change wrought in one will become absolutely permanent?"

"That is so," the professor assented. "Now all that you have to do, is to eat a green leaf from the little tree. After that, you will have no more need of those three beans, and you can therefore give them to me."

Burton made no attempt to produce his little silver box.

"First of all," he said, "I must test the truth of this. I cannot run any risks. I must go and eat a leaf. If in three months no change has taken place in me, I will lend you a bean to examine. I can do no more than that. Until this matter is absolutely settled, they are worth more than life itself to me."

Mr. Cowper seemed annoyed.

"Surely," he protested, "you are not going to ask me to wait three months until I can examine one of these?"

"Three months will soon pass," Burton replied. "Until that time is up, I could not part with them."

"But you can't imagine," the professor pleaded, "how marvelously interesting this is to me. Remember that I have spent all my life digging about among the archives and the literature and the superstitions of these pre-Egyptian peoples. You are the first man in the world, outside a little circle of fellow-workers, to speak to me of this perfect food. Your story as to how it came into your hands is the most amazing romance I have ever heard. It confirms many of my theories. It is wonderful. Do you realize what has happened? You, sir, you in your insignificant person," the professor continued, shaking his finger at his visitor, "have tasted the result of thousands of years of unceasing study. Wise men in their cells, before Athens was built, before the Pyramids were conceived, were thinking out this matter in strange parts of Egypt, in forgotten parts of Syria and Asia. For generations their dream has been looked upon as a thing elusive as the philosopher's stone, the transmutation of metals—any of these unsolved problems. For five hundred years—since the days of a Russian scientist who lived on the Black Sea, but whose name, for the moment, I have forgotten—the whole subject has lain dead. It is indeed true that the fairy tales of one generation become the science of the next. Our own learned men have been blind. The whole chain of reasoning is so clear. Every article of human food contains its separate particles, affecting the moral as well as the physical system. Why should it have been deemed necromancy to endeavor to combine these parts, to evolve by careful elimination and change the perfect food? In the house, young man, which you have told me of, there died the hero of the greatest discovery which has ever been made since the world began to spin upon its orbit."

"Will Miss Edith be back to-morrow?" Burton asked.

The professor stared at him.

"Miss Edith?" he repeated. "Oh! my daughter? Is she not in?"

"She is away for two days, your servant told me," Burton replied.

"Perhaps so—perhaps so," the professor agreed. "She has gone to her aunt's, very likely, in Chelsea. My sister has a house there in Bromsgrove Terrace."

Burton rose to his feet. He held out his hand for the manuscript.

"I am exceedingly obliged to you," he said. "Now I must go."

The professor gripped the manuscript in his hand. He was no longer a harmless and benevolent old gentleman. He was like a wild animal about to be robbed of its prey.

"No," he cried. "You must not take these away. You must not think of it. They are of no use to you. Leave me the sheets, just as they are. I will go further back. There are several words at the meaning of which I have only guessed. Leave them with me for a few days, and I will make you an exact translation."

"Very well," Burton assented.

"And one bean?" the professor begged. "Leave me one bean only? I promise not to eat it, not to dissect it, not to subject it to experiments of any sort. Let me just have it to look at, to be sure that what you have told me is not an hallucination."

Burton shook his head.

"I dare not part with one. I am going straight back to test the leaf theory. If it is correct, I will keep my promise. And—will you remember me to Miss Edith when she returns, professor?"

"To Miss Edith? Yes, yes, of course," Mr. Cowper declared, impatiently. "When shall you be down again, my young friend?" he went on earnestly. "I want to hear more of your experiences. I want you to tell me the whole thing over again. I should like to get a signed statement from you. There are several points in connection with what you say, which bear out a favorite theory of mine."

"I will come in a few days, if I may," Burton assured him.

The professor walked with his guest to the front door. He seemed reluctant to let him go.

"Take care of yourself, Mr. Burton," he enjoined. "Yours is a precious life. On no account subject yourself to any risks. Be careful of the crossings. Don't expose yourself to inclement weather. Keep away from any place likely to harbor infectious disease. I should very much like to have a meeting in London of a few of my friends, if I could ensure your presence."

"When I come down again," Burton promised, "we will discuss it."

He shook hands and hurried away. In less than an hour and a half he was in Mr. Waddington's rooms. The latter had just arrived from the office.

"Mr. Waddington," Burton exclaimed, "the little tree on which the beans grew—where is it?"

Mr. Waddington was taken aback.

"But I picked all the beans," he replied. "There were only the leaves left."

"Never mind that!" Burton cried. "It is the leaves we want! The tree—where is it? Quick! I want to feel myself absolutely safe."

Mr. Waddington's face was blank.

"You have heard the translation of those sheets?"

"I have," Burton answered hastily. "I will tell you all about it directly—as soon as you have brought me the tree."

Mr. Waddington had turned a little pale.

"I gave it to a child in the street, on my way home from Idlemay House," he declared. "There was no sign of any more beans coming and I had more than enough to carry."

Burton sank into a chair and groaned.

"We are lost," he exclaimed, "unless you can find that child! Our cure is only temporary. We need a leaf each from the tree. I have only eight months and two weeks more!"

Mr. Waddington staggered to a seat. He produced his own beans and counted them eagerly.

"A little under eleven months!" he muttered. "We must find the tree!"



CHAPTER XV

THE PROFESSOR INSISTS

Crouched over his writing table, with sheets of manuscript on every side of him, Burton worked like a slave at his novel. After a week devoted by Mr. Waddington and himself to a fruitless search for the missing plant, they had handed the matter over to a private detective and Burton had settled down to make the most of the time before him. Day after day of strange joys had dawned and passed away. He had peopled his room with shadows. Edith had looked at him out of her wonderful eyes, he had felt the touch of her fingers as she had knelt by his side, the glow which had crept into his heart as he had read to her fragments of his story and listened to her words of praise. The wall which he had built stood firm and fast. He lived in his new days. Life was all foreground, and hour by hour the splendid fancies came.

It was his first great effort at composition. Those little studies of his, as he had passed backwards and forwards through the streets and crowded places, had counted for little. Here he was making serious demands upon his new capacity. In a sense it was all very easy, all very wonderful, yet sometimes dejection came. Then his head drooped upon his folded arms, he doubted himself and his work, he told himself that he was living in a fool's Paradise—a fool's Paradise indeed!

One afternoon there came a timid knock at his door. He turned in his chair a little impatiently. Then his pen slipped from his fingers. His left hand gripped the side of the table, his right hand the arm of his chair. It was a dream, of course!

"I hope we do not disturb you, Mr. Burton?" the professor inquired, with anxious amiability. "My daughter and I were in the neighborhood and I could not resist the visit. We had some trouble at first in finding you."

Burton rose to his feet. He was looking past the professor, straight into Edith's eyes. In her white muslin gown, her white hat and flowing white veil, she seemed to him more wonderful, indeed, than any of those cherished fancies of her which had passed through his room night and day to the music of his thoughts.

"I am glad," he said simply. "Of course I am glad to see you! Please come in. It is very untidy here. I have been hard at work."

He placed chairs for them. The professor glanced around the room with some satisfaction. It was bare, but there was nothing discordant upon the walls or in the furniture. There were many evidences, too, of a scholarly and cultivated taste. Edith had glided past him to the window and was murmuring her praises of the view.

"I have never seen a prettier view of the river in my life," she declared, "and I love your big window. It is almost like living out of doors, this. And how industrious you have been!"

She pointed to the sea of loose sheets which covered the table and the floor. He smiled. He was beginning to recover himself.

"I have been working very hard," he admitted.

"But why?" she murmured. "You are young. Surely there is plenty of time? Is it because the thoughts have come to you and you dared not daily with them? Or is it because you are like every one else—in such a terrible hurry to become rich and famous?"

He shook his head.

"It is not that," he said. "I have no thought of either. Alas!" he added, looking into her eyes, "I lack the great incentive!"

"Then why is it?" she whispered.

"You must not ask our young friend too many questions," the professor interrupted, a trifle impatiently. "Tell me, Mr. Burton, has there been any change—er—in your condition?"

Burton shivered for a moment.

"None at present," he admitted. "It is scarcely due as yet."

Mr. Cowper drew his chair a little nearer. His face betokened the liveliest interest. Edith stood in the window for a moment and then sank into a chair in the background.

"With reference to your last remark," the professor went on, "it has yet, I think, to be proved that these beans are of equal potency. You understand me, I am sure, Mr. Burton? I mean that it does not in the least follow that because one of them is able to keep you in an abnormal condition for two months, the next one will keep you there for the same period."

Burton was frankly startled.

"Is there anything about that in the translation, sir?" he asked.

"There is this sentence which I will read to you," the professor pronounced, drawing a roll of paper from his pocket and adjusting his spectacles. "I have now a more or less correct translation of the sheets you left with me, a copy of which is at your disposal. Here it is:—'The formula is now enunciated and proved. The secret which has defied the sages of the world since the ages of twilight, has yielded itself to me, the nineteenth seeker after the truth in one direct line. One slight detail alone baffles me. So far as I have gone at present, the constituent parts, containing always the same elements and producing, therefore, the same effect, appear in variable dimensions or potencies, for reasons which at present elude me. Of my formula there is no longer any doubt. This substance which I have produced shall purify and make holy the world.'"

The professor looked up from his paper.

"Our interesting friend," he remarked, "seems to have been interrupted at this point, probably by the commencement of that illness which had, unfortunately, a fatal conclusion. Yet the meaning of what he writes is perfectly clear. This substance, consolidated, I believe, into what you term a bean, is not equally distributed. Therefore, I take it that you may remain in your present condition for a longer or shorter period of time. The potency of the first—er—dose, is nothing to go by. You have, however, already learned how to render your present condition eternal."

Burton sighed.

"The knowledge came too late," he said. "The tree had disappeared. It was given away, by the Mr. Waddington I told you of, to a child whom he met in the street."

"Dear me!" Mr. Cowper exclaimed gravely. "This is most disappointing. Is there no chance of recovering it?

"We are trying," Burton replied. "Mr. Waddington has engaged a private detective and we are also advertising in the papers."

"You have the beans still, at any rate," the professor remarked, hopefully.

"We have the beans," Burton admitted, "but it is very awkward not knowing how long one's condition is going to last. I might go out without my beans one day, and find myself assailed by all manner of amazing inclinations."

"My dear young man," the professor said earnestly, "let me point out to you that this is a wonderful position in which you have been placed. You ought to be most proud and grateful. Any trifling inconveniences which may result should be, I venture to say, utterly ignored by you. Now come, let me ask you a question. Are you feeling absolutely your—how shall I call it—revised self to-day?"

"Absolutely, thank Heaven!" Burton declared, fervently.

The professor nodded his head. All the time his eyes were roving about Burton's person, as though he were longing to make a minute study of his anatomy.

"It would be most interesting," he said, "to trace the commencement of any change in your condition. I am here with a proposition, Mr. Burton. I appeal to you in the name of science as well as—er—hospitality. The change might come to you here while you are alone. There would be no one to remark upon it, no one to make those interesting and instructive notes which, in justice to the cause of progress, should be made by some competent person such as—forgive me—myself. I ask you, therefore, to pack up and return with us to Leagate. You shall have a study to yourself, my daughter will be only too pleased and proud to assist you in your work, and I have also a young female who comes to type-write for me, whose services you can entirely command. I trust that you will not hesitate, Mr. Burton. We are most anxious—indeed we are most anxious, are we not, Edith?—to have you come."

Burton turned his head and glanced toward the girl. She had raised her veil. Her eyes met his, met his question and evaded it. She studied the pattern of the carpet. When she looked up again, her cheeks were pink.

"Mr. Burton will be very welcome," she said.

There was a short silence in the room. The sunshine fell across the dusty room in a long, quivering shaft. Outside, the branches of an elm tree swinging in the wind cast a shadow across the floor. The professor, with folded arms, sat alert and expectant. Burton, pale and shrunken with the labors of the last ten days, looked out of his burning eyes at the girl. For a single moment she had raised her head, had met his fierce inquiry with a certain wistful pathos, puzzling, an incomplete sentiment. Now she, too, was sitting as though in an attitude of waiting. Burton felt his heart suddenly leap. What might lie beyond the wall was of no account. He was a man with only a few brief months to live, as he had come to understand life. He would follow the eternal philosophy. He would do as the others and make the best of them.

"It is very kind of you," he said. "I am not prepared to make a visit,—I mean my clothes, and that sort of thing,—but if you will take me as I am, I will come with pleasure."

Mr. Cowper's face showed the liveliest satisfaction. Edith, on the other hand, never turned her head, although she felt Burton's eyes upon her.

"Capital!" the professor declared. "Now do not think that we are trying to abduct you, but there is a motor-car outside. We are going to take you straight home. You can have a little recreation this beautiful afternoon—a walk on the moors, or some tennis with Edith here. We will try and give you a pleasant time. You must collect your work now and go and put your things together. We are not in the least hurry. We will wait."

Burton rose a little unsteadily to his feet. He was weary with much labor, carried a little away by this wonderful prospect of living in the same house, of having her by his side continually. It was too amazing to realize. His heart gave a great leap as she moved towards him and looked a little shyly into his face.

"May I not help you to pick up these sheets? I see that you have numbered them all. I will keep them in their proper order. Perhaps you could trust me to do that while you went and packed your bag?"

"Quite right, my dear—quite right," the professor remarked, approvingly. "You will find my daughter most careful in such matters, Mr. Burton. She is used to being associated with work of importance."

"You are very kind," Burton murmured. "If you will excuse me, then, for a few moments?"

"By all means," the professor declared. "And pray suit yourself entirely, Mr. Burton, as to the clothes you bring and the preparations you make for your visit. If you prefer not to change for the evening, I will do the same. I am renowned in the neighborhood chiefly for my shabbiness and my carpet slippers."

Burton paused on the threshold and looked back. Edith was bending over the table, collecting the loose sheets of manuscript. The sunlight had turned her hair almost to the color of flame. Against the background of the open window, her slim, delicate figure, clad in a fashionable mist of lace and muslin, seemed to him like some wonderful piece of intensely modern statuary. Between them the professor sat, with his arms still folded, a benevolent yet pensive smile upon his lips.



CHAPTER XVI

ENTER MR. BOMFORD!

"I have decided," Edith remarked, stopping the swinging of the hammock with her foot, "to write and ask Mr. Bomford to come and spend the week-end here."

Burton shook his head.

"Please don't think of it," he begged. "It would completely upset me. I should not be able to do another stroke of work."

"You and your work!" Edith murmured, looking down at him. "What about me? What is the use of being engaged if I may not have my fiance come and see me sometimes?"

"You don't want him," Burton declared, confidently.

"But I do," she insisted, "if only to stop your making love to me."

"I do not make love to you," he asserted. "I am in love with you. There is a difference."

"But you ought not to be in love with me—you have a wife," she reminded him.

"A wife who lives at Garden Green does not count," he assured her. "Besides, it was the other fellow who married her. She isn't really my wife at all. It would be most improper of me to pretend that she was."

"You are much too complicated a person to live in the same house with," she sighed. "I shall do as I said. I shall ask Mr. Bomford down for the week-end."

"Then I shall go back to London," he pronounced, firmly.

A shadow fell across the grass.

"What's that—what's that?" the professor demanded, anxiously.

They both looked up quickly. The professor had just put in one of his unexpected appearances. He had a habit of shuffling about in felt slippers which were altogether inaudible.

"Miss Edith was speaking of asking a visitor—a Mr. Bomford—down for the week-end," Burton explained suavely. "I somehow felt that I should not like him. In any case, I have been here for a week and I really ought—"

"Edith will do nothing of the sort," the professor declared, sharply. "Do you hear that, Edith? No one is to be asked here at all. Mr. Burton's convenience is to be consulted before any one's."

She yawned and made a face at Burton.

"Very well, father," she replied meekly, "only I might just as well not be engaged at all."

"Just as well!" the professor snapped. "Such rubbish!"

Edith swung herself upright in the hammock, arranged her skirts, and faced her father indignantly.

"How horrid of you!" she exclaimed. "You know that I only got engaged to please you, because you thought that Mr. Bomford would take more interest in publishing your books. If I can't ever have him here, I shall break it off. He expects to be asked—I am quite sure he does."

The professor frowned impatiently.

"You are a most unreasonable child," he declared. "Mr. Bomford may probably pay us a passing visit at any time, and you must be content with that."

Edith sighed. She contemplated the tips of her shoes for some moments.

"I do seem to be in trouble to-day," she remarked,—"first with Mr. Burton and then with you."

The professor turned unsympathetically away.

"You know perfectly well how to keep out of it," he said, making his way toward the house.

"Between you both," Edith continued, "I really am having rather a hard time. This is the last straw of all. I am deprived of my young man now, just to please you."

"He isn't a young man," Burton contradicted.

Edith clasped her hands behind her head and looked fixedly up at the blue sky.

"Never mind his age," she murmured. "He is really very nice."

"I've seen his photograph in the drawing-room," Burton reminded her.

Edith frowned.

"He is really much better looking than that," she said with emphasis.

"It is perhaps as well," Burton retorted, "especially if he is in the habit of going about unattended."

Edith ignored his last speech altogether. "Mr. Bomford is also," she went on, "extremely pleasant and remarkably well-read. His manners are charming."

"I am sorry you are missing him so much," Burton said.

"A girl," Edith declared, with her head in the air, "naturally misses the small attentions to which she is accustomed from her fiance."

"If there is anything an unworthy substitute can do," Burton began,—

"Nice girls do not accept substitutes for their fiances," Edith interrupted, ruthlessly. "I am a very nice girl indeed. I think that you are very lazy this afternoon. You would be better employed at work than in talking nonsense."

Burton sighed.

"I tried to work this morning," he declared. "I gave up simply because I found myself thinking of you all the time. Genius is so susceptible to diversions. This afternoon I couldn't settle down because I was wondering all the time whether you were wearing blue linen or white muslin. I just looked out of the window to see—you were asleep in the hammock . . . you witch!" he murmured softly. "How could I keep sane and collected! How could I write about anybody or anything in the world except you! The wind was blowing those little strands of hair over your face. Your left arm was hanging down—so; why is an arm such a graceful thing, I wonder? Your left knee was drawn up—you had been supporting a book against it and—"

"I don't want to hear another word," Edith protested quickly.

He sighed.

"It took me about thirty seconds to get down," he murmured. "You hadn't moved."

"Shall we have tea out here or in the study?" Edith asked.

"Anywhere so long as we escape from this," Burton replied, gazing across the lawn. "What is it?"

A man was making his way from the house towards them, a man who certainly presented a somewhat singular appearance. He was wearing a long linen duster, a motor-cap which came over his ears, and a pair of goggles which he was busy removing. Edith swung herself on to her feet. Considering her late laments, the dismay in her tone was a little astonishing.

"It is Mr. Bomford!" she cried.

Burton sighed—with relief.

"I am glad to hear that it is human," he murmured. "I thought that it was a Wells nightmare or that something from underground had been let loose."

She shot an indignant glance at him. Her greeting of Mr. Bomford was almost enough to turn his head. She held out both her hands.

"My dear Mr.—my dear Paul!" she exclaimed. "How glad I am to see you! Have you motored down?"

"Obviously, my dear, obviously," the newcomer remarked, removing further portions of his disguise and revealing a middle-aged man of medium height and unimposing appearance, with slight sandy whiskers and moustache. "A very hot and dusty ride too. Still, after your father's message I did not hesitate for a second. Where is he, Edith? Have you any idea what it is that he wants?"

She shook her head.

"Did he send for you?" she asked.

"Send for me!" Mr. Bomford repeated. "I should rather think he did."

He looked inquiringly towards Burton. Edith introduced them.

"This," she said, "is Mr. Burton, a friend of father's, who is staying with us for a few days. He is writing a book. Perhaps, if you are very polite to him, he will let you publish it. Mr. Bomford—Mr. Burton."

The two men shook hands solemnly. Neither of them expressed any pleasure at the meeting.

"I am sure you would like a drink," Edith suggested. "Let me take you up to the house and we can find father. You won't mind, Mr. Burton?"

"Not in the least," he assured her.

They disappeared into the house. Burton threw himself once more upon the lawn, his hands clasped behind his head, gazing upwards through the leafy boughs to the blue sky. So this was Mr. Bomford! This was the rival of whom he had heard! Not so very formidable a person, not formidable at all save for one thing only—he was free to marry her, free to marry Edith. Burton lay and dreamed in the sunshine. A thrush came out and sang to him. A west wind brought him wafts of perfume from the gardens below. The serenity of the perfect afternoon mocked his disturbed frame of mind. What was the use of it all? The longer he remained here the more abject he became! . . . Suddenly Edith reappeared alone. She came across the lawn to him with a slight frown upon her forehead. He lay there and watched her until the last moment. Then he rose and dragged out a chair for her.

"So the lovers' interview is over!" he ventured to observe. "You do not seem altogether transported with delight."

"I am very much pleased indeed to see Mr. Bomford," she assured him.

"I," he murmured, "am glad that I have seen him."

Edith looked at him covertly.

"I do not think," she said, "that I quite approve of your tone this afternoon."

"I am quite sure," he retorted, "that I do not approve of yours."

She made a little grimace at him.

"Let us agree, then, to be mutually dissatisfied. I do wish," she added softly, "that I knew why father had sent for Mr. Bomford. It is nothing to do with his work, I am sure of that. He knows that Paul hates coming away from the office on week days."

Burton groaned.

"Is his name Paul?"

"Certainly it is," she answered.

"It sounds very familiar."

"It is nothing of the sort; when you are engaged to a person, you naturally call him by his Christian name. I can't think, though, why father didn't tell us that he was coming."

"I have an idea," Burton declared, "that his coming has something to do with me."

"With you?

"Why not? Am I not an interesting subject for speculation? Mr. Bomford, you told me only a few days ago, is a scientist, an Egyptologist, a philosopher. Why should he not be interested in the same things which interest your father?"

"It is quite true," she admitted. "I had not thought of that."

"At the present moment," Burton continued, moving a little on one side, "they are probably in the dining-room drinking Hock and seltzer, and your father is explaining to your fiance the phenomenon of my experiences. I wonder whether he will believe them?"

"Mr. Bomford," she said, "will believe anything that my father tells him."

"Are you very much in love?" Burton asked, irrelevantly.

"You ask such absurd questions," she replied. "Nowadays, one is never in love."

"How little you know of what goes on nowadays!" he sighed. "What about myself? Do I need to tell you that I am hopelessly in love with you?"

"You," she declared, "are a phenomenon. You do not count."

The professor and his guest came through the French window, arm in arm, talking earnestly.

"Look at them!" Burton groaned. "They are talking about me—I can tell it by their furtive manner. Mr. Bomford has heard the whole story. He is a little incredulous but he wishes to be polite to his future father-in-law. What a pity that I could not have a relapse while he is here!"

"Couldn't you?" she exclaimed. "It would be such fun!"

Burton shook his head.

"Nothing but the truth," he declared sadly.

Mr. Bomford, without his motoring outfit, was still an unprepossessing figure. He wore a pince-nez; his manner was fussy and inclined to be a little patronizing. He had the air of an unsuccessful pedagogue. He was obviously regarding Burton with a new interest. During tea-time he conversed chiefly with Edith, who seemed a little nervous, and answered most of his questions with monosyllables. Burton and the professor were silent. Burton was watching Edith and the professor was watching Burton. As soon as the meal was concluded, the professor rose to his feet.

"Edith, my dear," he said, "we wish you to leave us for a minute or two. Mr. Bomford and I have something to say to Mr. Burton."

Edith, with a slight shrug of the shoulders, rose to her feet. She caught a glance from Burton and turned at once to her fiance.

"Am I to be taken for a ride this evening?" she asked.

"A little later on, by all means, my dear Edith," Mr. Bomford declared. "A little later on, certainly. Your father has kindly invited me to stay and dine. It will give me very much pleasure. Perhaps we could go for a short distance in—say three-quarters of an hour's time?"

Edith went slowly back to the house. Burton watched her disappear. The professor and Mr. Bomford drew their chairs a little closer. The professor cleared his throat.

"Mr. Burton," he began, "Mr. Bomford and I have a proposition to lay before you. May I beg for your undivided attention?"

Burton withdrew his eyes from the French window through which Edith had vanished.

"I am quite at your service," he answered quietly. "Please let me hear exactly what it is that you have to say."



CHAPTER XVII

BURTON DECLINES

The professor cleared his throat.

"In the first place, Mr. Burton," he said, "I feel that I owe you an apology. I have taken a great liberty. Mr. Bomford here is one of my oldest and most intimate friends. I have spoken to him of the manuscript you brought me to translate. I have told him your story."

Mr. Bomford scratched his side whiskers and nodded patronizingly.

"It is a very remarkable story," he declared, "a very remarkable story indeed. I can assure you, Mr.—Mr. Burton, that I never listened to anything so amazing. If any one else except my old friend here had told me of it, I should have laughed. I should have dismissed the whole thing at once as incredible and preposterous. Even now, I must admit that I find it almost impossible to accept the story in its entirety."

Burton looked him coldly in the eyes. Mr. Bomford did not please him.

"The story is perfectly true," he said. "There is not the slightest necessity for you to believe it—in fact, so far as I am concerned, it does not matter in the least whether you do or not."

"Mr. Burton," the professor interposed, "I beg that you will not misunderstand Mr. Bomford. His is not a militant disbelief, it is simply a case of suspended judgment. In the meantime, assuming the truth of what you have told us—and I for one, you must remember, Mr. Burton, have every faith in your story—assuming its truth, Mr. Bomford has made a most interesting proposition."

Burton, with half-closed eyes, was listening to the singing of a thrush and watching the sunshine creep through the dark foliage of the cedar trees. He was only slightly interested.

"A proposition?" he murmured.

"Precisely," Mr. Cowper assented. "We have an appeal to make to you, an appeal on behalf of science, an appeal on behalf of your fellow-creatures, an appeal on behalf of yourself. Your amazing experience is one which should be analyzed and given to the world."

"What you want, I suppose," Burton remarked, "is one of my beans."

"Exactly," the professor admitted, eagerly.

"I have already," Burton said, "done my best to make you understand my feelings in this matter. Those beans represent everything to me. Nothing would induce me to part with a single one."

"We can understand that," the professor agreed. "We are approaching you with regard to them in an altogether different manner. Mr. Bomford is a man of business. It is our wish to make you an offer."

"You mean that you would like to buy one?"

"Precisely," the professor replied. "We are prepared to give you, between us, a thousand pounds for one of those beans."

Burton shook his head. The conversation appeared to be totally devoid of interest to him.

"A thousand pounds," he said, "is, I suppose, a great deal of money. I have never owned so much in my life. But money, after all, is only valuable for what it can buy. Each one of my beans means two months, perhaps more, of real life. No money could buy that."

"My young friend," the professor insisted solemnly, "you are looking at this matter from a selfish point of view. Experiences such as you have passed through, belong to the world. You are merely the agent, the fortunate medium, through which they have materialized."

Burton shrugged his shoulders.

"So far," he replied, "I owe no debt to humanity. The longer I live and the wiser I get, the more I realize the absolute importance of self-care. Individualism is the only real and logical creed. No one else looks after your interests. No one else in the world save yourself is of any real account."

"A thousand pounds," Mr. Bomford interposed, "is a great deal of money for a young man in your position."

"It is a very great deal," Burton admitted. "But what you and Mr. Cowper both seem to forget is the very small part that money plays in the acquisition of real happiness. Money will not buy the joy which makes life worth living, it will not buy the power to appreciate, the power to discriminate. It will not buy taste or the finer feelings, without the possession of which one becomes a dolt, a thing that creeps about the face of the world. I thank you for your offer, professor, and Mr. Bomford, but I have nothing to sell. If you would excuse me!"

He half rose from his chair but Mr. Cowper thrust him back again.

"We have not finished yet, my dear Mr. Burton," he said eagerly. "You are making up your mind too hastily."

"A thousand pounds," Mr. Bomford repeated, condescendingly, "is a very useful sum. Those peculiar gifts of yours may vanish. Take the advice of a business man. Remember that you will still have two or three beans left. It is only one we ask for. I want to put the matter on as broad a basis as possible. We make our appeal on behalf of the cause of science. You must not refuse us." Burton rose to his feet determinedly. "Not only do I refuse," he said, "but it is not a matter which I am inclined to discuss any longer. I am sorry if you are disappointed, but my story was really told to Mr. Cowper here in confidence." He left them both sitting there. He found Edith in a corner of the long drawing-room. She was pretending to read.

"Whatever is the matter?" she asked. "I did not expect you so soon. I thought that Mr. Bomford and father wanted to talk to you." "So they did," he replied. "They made me a foolish offer. It was Mr. Bomford's idea, I am sure, not your father's. I am tired, Edith. Come and walk with me."—She glanced out of the window.

"I think," she said demurely, "that I am expected to go for a ride with Mr. Bomford."

"Then please disappoint him," he pleaded. "I do not like your friend Mr. Bomford. He is an egotistical and ignorant person. We will go across the moors, we will climb our little hill. Perhaps we might even wait there until the sunset."

"I am quite sure," she said decidedly, "that Mr. Bomford would not like that."

"What does it matter?" he answered. "A man like Mr. Bomford has no right to have any authority over you at all. You are of a different clay. I am sure that you will never marry him. If you will not walk with me, I shall work, and I am not in the humor for work. I shall probably spoil one of my best chapters."

She rose to her feet.

"In the interests of your novel!" she murmured. "Come! Only we had better go out by the back door."

Like children they stole out of the house. They climbed the rolling moorland till they reached the hill on the further side of the valley. She sat down, breathless, with her back against the trunk of a small Scotch fir. Burton threw himself on to the ground by her side.

"We think too much always of consequences," he said "After this evening, what does anything matter? The gorse is a flaming yellow; do you see how it looks like a field of gold there in the distance? Only the haze separates it from the blue sky. Look down where I am pointing, Edith. It was there by the side of the road that I first looked into the garden and saw you."

"It was not you who looked," she objected, shaking her head. "It was the other man."

"What part is it that survives?" he asked, a little bitterly. "Why should the new man be cursed with memory? Don't you think that even then there must have been two of me, one struggling against the other—one seeking for the big things, one laying hold of the lower? We are all like that, Edith! Even now I sometimes feel the tug, although it leads in other directions."

"To Garden Green?" she murmured.

"Never that," he answered fiercely, "and you know it. There are lower heights, though, in the most cultured of lives. There are moments of madness, moments that carry one off one's feet, which come alike to the slave and his master. Dear Edith, up here one can talk. It is such a beautiful world. One can open one's eyes, one can breathe, one can look around him. It is the joy of simple things, the real true joy of life which beats in our veins. Do you think that we were made for unhappiness in such a world, Edith?"

"No!" she whispered, faintly.

"There isn't anything so beautiful to me upon God's earth," he continued, "as the love in my heart for you. I wanted to tell you so this evening. I have brought you here to tell you so—to this particular spot. Something tells me that it may be almost our last chance. I left those two whispering upon the lawn. What is it they are planning, I wonder? That man Bomford is no companion for your father. He has given him an idea about me and my story. What is it, I wonder? To rob me, to throw me out, to take my treasure from me by force?"

"You are my father's guest," she reminded him softly. "He will not forget it."

"There are greater things in the world," he went on, "than the obligations of hospitality. There are tides which sweep away the landmarks of nature herself. Your father is thirsty for knowledge. This man Bomford is his friend. There have been more crimes committed in the world for lofty motives than one hears of."

He leaned a little forward. They could see the smoke curling up from the house below, its gardens laid out like patchwork, the low house itself covered with creepers.

"It was an idyll, that," he went on. "Bomford's trail is about the place now, the trail of some poisonous creature. Nothing will ever be the same. I want to remember this last evening. I have looked upon life from the hill tops and I have looked at it along the level ways, but I have seen nothing in it so beautiful, I have felt nothing in it so wonderful, as my love for you. You were a dream to me before, half hidden, only partly realized. Soon you will be a dream to me again. But never, never, dear, since the magic brush painted the blue into the skies, the purple on to the heather, the green on to the grass, the yellow into the gorse, the blue into your eyes, was there any love like mine!"

She leaned towards him. Her fingers were cold and her voice trembled.

"You must not!" she begged.

He smiled as he passed his arm around her.

"Are we not on the hill top, dear?" he said. "You need have no fear. Only to-night I felt that I must say these things to you, even though the passion which they represent remains as ineffective forever as the words themselves. I have a feeling, you know, that after to-day things will be different."

"Why should they be?" she asked. "In any case, your time cannot come yet."

Once more he looked downward into the valley. Like a little speck along the road a motor-car was crawling along.

"It is Mr. Bomford," he said. "He is coming to look for you."

She rose to her feet. Together they stood, for a moment, hand in hand, looking down upon the flaming landscape. The fields at their feet were brilliant with color; in the far distance the haze of the sea. Their fingers were locked.

"Mr. Bomford," he sighed, "is coming up the hill."

"Then I think," she said quietly, "that we had better go down!"



CHAPTER XVIII

THE END OF A DREAM

Dinner that evening was a curious meal, partly constrained, partly enlivened by strange little bursts of attempted geniality on the part of the professor. Mr. Bomford told long and pointless stories with much effort and the air of a man who would have made himself agreeable if he could. Edith leaned back in her chair, eating very little, her eyes large, her cheeks pale. She made her escape as soon as possible and Burton watched her with longing eyes as he passed out into the cool darkness. He half rose, indeed, to follow her, but his host and Mr. Bomford both moved their chairs so that they sat on either side of him. The professor filled the glasses with his own hand. It was his special claret, a wonderful wine, the cobwebbed bottle of which, reposing in a wicker cradle, he handled with jealous care.

"Mr. Burton," he began, settling down in his chair, "we have been unjust to you, Mr. Bomford and I. We apologize. We ask your forgiveness."

"Unjust?" Burton murmured.

"Unjust," the professor repeated. "I allude to this with a certain amount of shame. We made you an offer of a thousand pounds for a portion of that—er—peculiar product to which you owe this wonderful change in your disposition. We were in the wrong. We had thoughts in our mind which we should have shared with you. It was not fair, Mr. Burton, to attempt to carry out such a scheme as Mr. Bomford here had conceived, without including you in it." The professor nodded to himself, amiably satisfied with his words. Burton remained mystified. Mr. Bomford took up the ball.

"We yielded, Mr. Burton," he said, "to the natural impulse of all business men. We tried to make the best bargain we could for ourselves. A little reflection and—er—your refusal of our offer, has brought us into what I trust you will find a more reasonable frame of mind. We wish now to treat you with the utmost confidence. We wish to lay our whole scheme before you."

"I don't know what you mean," Burton declared, a little wearily. "You want one of my beans, for which you offered a certain sum of money. I am sorry. I would give you one if I could, but I cannot spare it. They are all that stand between me and a relapse into a state of being which I shudder to contemplate. Need we discuss it any further? I think, if you do not mind—"

He half rose to his feet, his eyes were searching the shadows of the garden. The professor pulled him down.

"Be reasonable, Mr. Burton—be reasonable," he begged. "Listen to what Mr. Bomford has to say."

Mr. Bomford cleared his throat, scratched his chin for a moment thoughtfully, and half emptied his glass of claret.

"Our scheme, my young friend," He said condescendingly, "is worthy even of your consideration. You are, I understand, gifted with some powers of observation which you have turned to lucrative account. It has naturally occurred to you, then, in your studies of life, that the greatest accumulations of wealth which have taken place during the present generation have come entirely through discoveries, which either nominally or actually have affected the personal well-being of the individual. Do I make myself clear?

"I have no doubt," Burton murmured, "that I shall understand presently."

"Once convince a man," Mr. Bomford continued, "that you are offering him something which will improve his health, and he is yours, or rather his money is—his two and sixpence or whatever particular sum you may have designed to relieve him of. It is for that reason that you see the pages of the magazines and newspapers filled with advertisements of new cures for ancient diseases. There is more money in the country than there has ever been, but there are just the same number of real and fancied diseases. Mankind is, if possible, more credulous to-day than at any epoch during our history. There are millions who will snatch at the slightest chance of getting rid of some real or fancied ailment. Great journals have endeavored to persuade us that you can attain perfect health by standing on your head in the bathroom for ten minutes before breakfast. A million bodies, distorted into strange shapes, can be seen every morning in the domestic bed-chamber. A health-food made from old bones has been one of the brilliant successes of this generation. Now listen to my motto. This is what I want to bring home to every inhabitant of this country. This is what I want to see in great black type in every newspaper, on every hoarding, and if possible flashed at night upon the sky: 'Cure the mind first; the mind will cure the body.' That," Mr. Bomford concluded, modestly, "is my idea of one of our preliminary advertisements."

The professor nodded approvingly. Burton glanced from one to the other of the two men with an air of almost pitiful non-comprehension. Mr. Bomford, having emptied his glass of claret, started afresh.

"My idea, in short," he went on, "is this. Let us three join forces. Let us analyze this marvelous product, into the possession of which you, Mr. Burton, have so mysteriously come. Let us, blending its constituents as nearly as possible, place upon the market a health-food not for the body but for the mind. You follow me now, I am sure? Menti-culture is the craze of the moment. It would become the craze of the million but for a certain vagueness in its principles, a certain lack of appeal to direct energies. We will preach the cause. We will give the public something to buy. We will ask them ten and sixpence a time and they will pay it gladly. What is more, Mr. Burton, the public will pay it all over the world. America will become our greatest market. Nothing like this has ever before been conceived, 'Leave your bodies alone for a time,' we shall say. 'Take our food and improve your moral system.' We shall become the crusaders of commerce. Your story will be told in every quarter of the globe, it will be translated into every conceivable tongue. Your picture will very likely adorn the lid of our boxes. It will be a matter for consideration, indeed, whether we shall not name this great discovery after you."

"So it was for this," Burton exclaimed, "that you offered me that thousand pounds!"

"We were to blame," Mr. Bomford admitted.

"Very much to blame," the professor echoed.

"Nevertheless," Mr. Bomford insisted, "it is an incident which you must forget. It is man's first impulse, is it not, to make the best bargain he can for himself? We tried it and failed. For the future we abandon all ideas of that sort, Mr. Burton. We associate you, both nominally and in effect, with our enterprise, in which we will be equal partners. The professor will find the capital, I will find the commercial experience, you shall hand over the bean. I promise you that before five years have gone by, you shall be possessed of wealth beyond any dreams you may ever have conceived."

Burton moved uneasily in his chair.

"But I have never conceived any dreams of wealth at all," he objected. "I have no desire whatever to be rich. Wealth seems to me to be only an additional excitement to vulgarity. Besides, the possession of wealth in itself tends to an unnatural state of existence. Man is happy only if he earns the money which buys for him the necessaries of life."

Mr. Bomford listened as one listens to a lunatic. Mr. Cowper, however, nodded his head in kindly toleration.

"Thoughts like that," he admitted, "have come to me, my young friend, in the seclusion of my study. They have come, perhaps, in the inspired moments, but in the inspired moments one is not living that every-day and necessary life which is forced upon us by the conditions of existence in this planet. There is nothing in the whole scheme of life so great as money. With it you can buy the means of gratifying every one of those unnatural desires with which Fate has endowed us. Take my case, for instance. If this wealth comes to me, I shall spend no more upon what I eat or drink or wear, yet, on the other hand, I shall gratify one of the dreams of my life. I shall start for the East with a search party, equipped with every modern invention which the mind of man has conceived. I shall go from site to site of the ruined cities of Egypt. No one can imagine what treasures I may not discover. I shall even go on to a part of Africa—but I need not weary you with this. I simply wanted you to understand that the desire for wealth is not necessarily vulgar."

Burton yawned slightly. His eyes sought once more the velvety shadows which hung over the lawn. He wondered down which of those dim avenues she had passed.

"I am so sorry," he said apologetically. "You are a man of business, Mr. Bomford, and you, professor, see much further into life than I can, but I do not wish to have anything whatever to do with your scheme. It does not appeal to me in the least—in fact it offends me. It seems crassly vulgar, a vulgar way of attaining to a position which I, personally, should loathe."

He rose to his feet.

"If you will excuse me, professor," he said. Mr. Bomford, with a greater show of vigor than he had previously displayed, jumped up and laid his hand upon the young man's shoulder. His hard face seemed suddenly to have become the rioting place for evil passions. His lips were a little parted and his teeth showed unpleasantly.

"Do you mean, young man," he exclaimed, "that you refuse to join us?"

"That is what I intended to convey," Burton replied coldly.

"You refuse either to come into our scheme or to give us one of the beans?"

Burton nodded.

"I hold them in trust for myself." There was a moment's silence. Mr. Bomford seemed to be struggling for words. The professor was looking exceedingly disappointed.

"Mr. Burton," he protested, "I cannot help feeling a certain amount of admiration for your point of view, but, believe me, you are entirely in the wrong. I beg that you will think this matter over."

"I am sure that it would be useless," Burton replied. "Nothing would induce me to change my mind."

"Nothing?" Mr. Bomford asked, with a peculiar meaning in his tone.

"Nothing?" the professor echoed softly.

Burton withdrew his eyes from the little shadowy vista of garden and looked steadfastly at the two men. Then his heart began to beat. He was filled with a sort of terror lest they should say what he felt sure was in their minds. It was like sacrilege. It was something unholy. His eyes had been caught by the flutter of a white gown passing across one of the lighter places of the perfumed darkness. They had been watching him. He only prayed that they would not interrupt until he had reached the end of his speech.

"Professor," he said softly, turning to his host, "there is one thing which I desire so greatly that I would give my life itself for it. I would give even what you have asked for to-night and be content to leave the world in so much shorter time. But that one thing I may not ask of you, for in those days of which I have told you, before the wonderful adventure came, I was married. My wife lives now in Garden Green. I have also a little boy. You will forgive me."

He passed through the open French windows and neither of them made any further attempt to detain him. Their silence was a little unnatural and from the walk outside he glanced for a moment behind him. The two men were sitting in exactly the same positions, their faces were turned towards him, and their eyes seemed to be following his movements. Yet there was a change. The professor was no longer the absorbed, mildly benevolent man of science. Mr. Bomford had lost his commonplace expression. There was a new thing in their faces, something eager, ominous. Burton felt a sudden depression as he turned away. He looked with relief at the thin circle of the moon, visible now through the waving elm trees at the bottom of the garden. He drew in with joy a long breath of the delicious perfume drawn by the night from the silent boughs of the cedar tree. Resolutely he hurried away from the sight of that ugly little framed picture upon which he had gazed through the open French windows—the two men on either side of the lamp, watching him.

"Edith!" he called softly.

She answered him with a little laugh. She was almost by his side. He took a quick step forward. She was standing among the deepest shadows, against the trunk of the cedar tree, her slim body leaning slightly against it. It seemed to him that her face was whiter, her eyes softer than ever. He took her hand in his.

She smiled.

"You must not come out to me here," she whispered. "Mr. Bomford will not like it. It is most improper."

"But it may be our good-bye," he pleaded. "They want me to do something, Mr. Bomford and your father, something hideous, utterly grotesque. I have refused and they are very angry."

"What is it that they want you to do?"

"Dear," he answered, "you, I am sure, will understand. They want me to give them one of my beans. They want to make some wretched drug or medicine from it, to advertise it all over the world, to amass a great fortune."

"Are you in earnest?" she cried.

"Absolutely," he assured her. "It is Mr. Bomford's scheme. He says that it would mean great wealth for all of us. Your father, too, praises it. He, too, seemed to come—for the moment, at any rate—under the curse. He, too, is greedy for money."

"And you?" she whispered. "What did you say?

"What did I say?" he repeated wonderingly. "But of course you know! Imagine the horror of it—a health-food for the mind! Huge sums of money rolling in from the pockets of credulous people, money stinking with the curse of vulgarity and quackery! It is almost like a false note, dear, to speak of it out here, but I must tell you because they are angry with me. I am afraid that your father will send me away, and I am afraid that our little dream is over and that I shall not wander with you any more evenings here in the cool darkness, when the heat of the day is past and the fragrance of the cedar tree and your roses fills the air, and you, your sweet self, Edith, are here."

She was looking at him very fixedly. Her lips were a little parted, her eyes were moist, her bosom was rising and falling as though she were shaken by some wonderful emotion.

"Dear!" she murmured.

It seemed to him that she leaned a little towards him. His heart ached with longing. Very slowly, almost reverently, his hands touched her shoulders, drew her towards him.

"You and I," he whispered, "at least we live in the same world. Nothing will ever be able to take the joy of that thought from my heart."

She remained quite passive. In her eyes there was a far-away look.

"Dear," she said softly in his ear, "you are such a dreamer, aren't you—such a dear unpractical person? Have you never used your wonderful imagination to ask yourself what money may really mean? You can buy a world of beautiful things, you can buy the souls of men and women, you can buy the law."

He felt a cold pain in his heart. Looking at her through the twilight he could almost fancy that there was a gleam in her face of something which he had seen shining out of her father's eyes. His arms fell away from her. The passion which had thrilled him but a moment ago seemed crushed by that great resurgent impulse which he was powerless to control.

"You think that I should do this?" he cried, hoarsely.

"Why not?" she answered. "Money is only vulgar if you spend it vulgarly. It might mean so much to you and to me."

"Tell me how?" he faltered.

"Mr. Bomford is very fond of money," she continued. "He is fonder of money, I think, than he is of me. And then," she added, her voice sinking to a whisper, "there is Garden Green. Of course, I do not know much about these things, but I suppose if you really wanted to, and spent a great deal of money, you could buy your freedom, couldn't you?"

The air seemed full of jangling discords. He closed his eyes. It was as though a shipwreck was going on around him. His dream was being broken up into pieces. The girl with the fair hair was passing into the shadows from which she had come. She called to him across the lawn as he hurried away, softly at first and then insistently. But Burton did not return. He spent his night upon the Common.



CHAPTER XIX

A BAD HALF-HOUR

Burton slept that night under a gorse bush. He was no sooner alone on the great unlit Common with its vast sense of spaciousness, its cool silence, its splendid dome of starlit sky, than all his anger and disappointment seemed to pass away. The white, threatening faces of the professor and Mr. Bomford no longer haunted him. Even the memory of Edith herself tugged no longer at his heartstrings. He slept almost like a child, and awoke to look out upon a million points of sunlight sparkling in the dewdrops. A delicious west wind was blowing. Little piled-up masses of white cloud had been scattered across the blue sky. Even the gorse bushes creaked and quivered. The fir trees in a little spinney close at hand were twisted into all manners of shapes. Burton listened to their music for a few minutes, and exchanged civilities with a dapple-breasted thrush seated on a clump of heather a few yards away. Then he rose to his feet, took in a long breath of the fresh morning air, and started briskly across the Common towards the nearest railway station.

He was conscious, after the first few steps, of a dim premonition of some coming change. It did not affect—indeed, it seemed to increase the lightness of his spirits, yet he was conscious at the back of his brain of a fear which he could not put into words. The first indication of real trouble came in the fact that he found himself whistling "Yip-i-addy-i-ay" as he turned into the station yard. He knew then what was coming.

After the first start, the rapidity of his collapse was appalling. The seclusion of the first-class carriage to which his ticket entitled him, and which his somewhat peculiar toilet certainly rendered advisable, was suddenly immensely distasteful. He bought Tit-bits and Ally Sloper at the bookstall, squeezed his way into a crowded third-class compartment, and joined in a noisy game of nap with half a dozen roistering young clerks, who were full of jokes about his crumpled dinner clothes. Arrived in London, he had the utmost difficulty to refrain from buying a red and yellow tie displayed in the station lavatory where he washed and shaved, and the necessity for purchasing a collar stud left him for a few moments in imminent peril of acquiring a large brass-stemmed production with a sham diamond head. He hastened to his rooms, scarcely daring to look about him, turned over the clothes in his wardrobe with a curious dissatisfaction, and dressed himself hastily in as offensive a combination of garments as he could lay his hands upon. He bought some common Virginian cigarettes and made his way to the offices of Messrs. Waddington and Forbes.

Mr. Waddington was unfeignedly glad to see him. His office was pervaded by a sort of studious calm which, from a business point of view, seemed scarcely satisfactory. Mr. Waddington himself appeared to be immersed in a calf-bound volume of Ruskin. He glanced curiously at his late employee.

"Did you dress in a hurry, Burton?" he inquired. "That combination of gray trousers and brown coat with a blue tie seems scarcely in your usual form."

Burton dragged up a chair to the side of his late employer's desk.

"Mr. Waddington," he begged, "don't let me go out of your sight until I have taken another bean. It came on early this morning. I went through all my wardrobe to find the wrong sort of clothes, and the only thing that seemed to satisfy me was to wear odd ones. Whatever you do, don't lose sight of me. In a few hours' time I shouldn't want to take a bean at all. I should be inviting you to lunch at the Golden Lion, playing billiards in the afternoon, and having a night out at a music hall."

Mr. Waddington nodded sympathetically.

"Poor fellow!" he said. "Seems odd that you should turn up this morning. I can sympathize with you. Have you noticed my tie?"

Burton nodded approvingly.

"Very pretty indeed," he declared.

"You won't think so when you've had that bean," Mr. Waddington groaned. "It began to come on with me about an hour ago. I forced myself into these clothes but the tie floored me. I've a volume of Ruskin here before me, but underneath, you see," he continued, lifting up the blotting-paper, "is a copy of Snapshots. I'm fighting it off as long as I can. The fact is I've a sale this afternoon. I thought if I could last until after that it might not be a bad thing."

"How's the biz?" Burton asked with a touch of his old jauntiness. "Going strong, eh?"

"Not so good and not so bad," Mr. Waddington admitted. "We've got over that boom that started at first when people didn't understand things. They seem to regard me now with a mixture of suspicion and contempt. All the same, we get a good many outside buyers in, and we've pulled along all right up till now. It's been the best few months of my life," Mr. Waddington continued, "by a long way, but I'm getting scared, and that's a fact."

"How many beans have you left?" Burton inquired.

"Four," Mr. Waddington replied. "What I shall do when they've gone I can't imagine."

Burton held his head for a moment a little wearily.

"There are times," he confessed, "especially when one's sort of between the two things like this, when I can't see my way ahead at all. Do you know that last night the man with whom I have been staying—a man of education too, who has been a professor at Oxford University,—and another, a more commercial sort of Johnny, offered me a third partnership in a great enterprise for putting on the market a new mental health-food, if I would give them one of the beans for analysis. They were convinced that we should make millions."

Mr. Waddington was evidently struck with the idea.

"It's a great scheme," he said hesitatingly. "I suppose last night it occurred to you that it was just a trifle—eh?—just a trifle vulgar?" he asked tentatively.

Burton assented gloomily.

"Last night," he declared, "it seemed to me like a crime. It made me shiver all over while they talked of it. To-day, well, I'm half glad and I'm half sorry that they're not here. If they walked into this office now I'd swallow a bean as quickly as I could, but I tell you frankly, Mr. Waddington, that at the present moment it seems entirely reasonable to me. Money, after all, is worth having, isn't it?—a nice comfortable sum so that one could sit back and just have a good time. Don't stare at me like that. Of course, I'm half ashamed of what I'm saying. There's the other part pulling and tugging away all the time makes me feel inclined to kick myself, but I can't help it. I know that these half formed ideas of enjoyment by means of wealth are only degrading, that one would sink—oh, hang it all, Mr. Waddington, what a mess it all is!"

Mr. Waddington pulled down his desk.

"We must go through with it, Burton," he said firmly. "You're more advanced than I am in this thing, I can see. You'll need your bean quickly. I believe I can hold off till after the sale. But—I've a curious sort of temptation at the present moment, Burton. Shall I tell you what it is?"

"Go ahead," Burton answered gloomily.

Mr. Waddington slapped his trousers pocket.

"Before we do another thing," he suggested, "let's go round to the Golden Lion and have just one bottle of beer—just to feel what it's like, eh?"

Burton sprang up.

"By Jove, let's!" he exclaimed. "I've had no breakfast. I'm ravenous. Do they still have that cheese and crusty loaf there?"

Mr. Waddington glanced at the clock.

"It's on by now," he declared. "Come along."

They went out together and trod eagerly yet a trifle sheepishly the very well-known way that led to the Golden Lion. The yellow-haired young lady behind the bar welcomed them with a little cry of astonishment. She tossed her head. Her manner was familiar but was intended to convey some sense of resentment.

"To think of seeing you two again!" she exclaimed. "You, Mr. Waddington, of all gentlemen in the world! Well, I declare!" she went on, holding out her hand across the counter, after having given it a preliminary wipe with a small duster. "Talk about a deserter! Where have you been to every morning, I should like to know?"

"Not anywhere else, my dear," Mr. Waddington asserted, hastily, "that I can assure you. Seem to have lost my taste for beer, or taking anything in the morning lately. Matter of digestion, I suppose. Must obey our doctors, eh? We'll have a tankard each, please. That's right, isn't it, Burton?"

Burton, whose mouth was already full of bread and cheese, nodded. The two men sat down in a little enclosed partition. The yellow-haired young lady leaned across the counter with the air of one willing for conversation.

"Such queer things as I've heard about you, Mr. Waddington," she began. "My! the way people have been talking!"

"That so?" Mr. Waddington muttered. "Wish they'd mind their own business."

"That's too much to expect from folks nowadays," the young lady continued. "Why, there were some saying as you'd come into a fortune and spent all your time in the west-end, some that you'd turned religious, and others that you'd gone a bit dotty. I must say you're looking somehow different, you and Mr. Burton too. It's quite like old times, though, to see you sitting there together. You used to come in after every sale and sit just where you're sitting now and go through the papers. How's the business?"

"Very good," Mr. Waddington admitted. "How have you been getting along, eh?"

The young lady sighed. She rolled her eyes at Mr. Waddington in a manner which was meant to be languishing.

"Very badly indeed," she declared, "thanks to you, you neglectful, ungrateful person! I've heard of fickle men before but I've never met one to come up to one that I could name."

Mr. Waddington moved a little uneasily in his place.

"Been to the theatre lately?" he inquired.

The theatre was apparently a sore point.

"Been to the theatre, indeed!" she repeated. "Why, I refused all the other gentlemen just so as to go with you, and as soon as we got nicely started, why, you never came near again! I've had no chance to go."

Mr. Waddington took out a little book.

"I wonder," he suggested, "if any evening—" "Next Thursday night at seven o'clock, I shall be free," the young lady interrupted promptly. "We'll have a little dinner first, as we used to, and I want to go to the Gaiety. It's lucky you came in," she went on, "for I can assure you that I shouldn't have waited much longer. There are others, you know, that are free enough with their invitations."

She tossed her head. With her hands to the back of her hair she turned round to look at herself for a moment in one of the mirrors which lined the inside of the bar. Burton grinned at his late employer.

"Now you've gone and done it!" he whispered. "Why, you'll have taken a bean before then!"

Mr. Waddington started.

"I'll have to make some excuse," he said.

"You won't be able to," Burton reminded him. "Excuses are not for us, nowadays. You'll have to tell the truth. I'm afraid you've rather put your foot in it."

Mr. Waddington became thoughtful. The young lady, having disposed of some other customers, returned to her place. She rubbed the counter for a few minutes with a duster which hung from the belt around her waist. Then she leaned over once more towards them.

"It's a pity Maud's off duty, Mr. Burton," she remarked. "She's been asking about you pretty nearly every day."

A vision of Maud rose up before Burton's eyes. First of all he shivered. Then in some vague, unwholesome sort of manner he began to find the vision attractive. He found himself actually wishing that she were there—a buxom young woman with dyed hair and sidelong glances, a loud voice, and a distinct fancy for flirtations.

"She is quite well, I hope?" he said.

"Oh, Maudie's all right!" the young lady replied. "Fortunately for her, she's like me—she don't lay too much store on the things you gentlemen say when you come in. Staying away for months at a time!" she continued indignantly. "I'm ashamed of both of you. It's the way we girls always get treated. I shall tell them to lay for you for lunch to-day, anyway."

The two men looked at one another across the round table. Mr. Waddington heaved a sigh.

"I shouldn't bother about that sale, if I were you," Burton whispered hoarsely. "I tell you what it is, I daren't go on like this any longer. I shall do something desperate. This horrible place is getting attractive to me! I shall probably sit here and order more beer and wait till Maud comes; I shall stay to lunch and sit with my arm around her afterwards! I am going to take a bean at once."

Mr. Waddington sighed and produced the snuff-box from his waistcoat pocket. Burton followed suit. The young woman, leaning across the counter, watched them curiously.

"What's that you're taking?" she inquired. "Something for indigestion?"

"Not exactly," Mr. Waddington replied. "It's a little ailment I'm suffering from, and Burton too."

They both swallowed their beans. Burton gave a deep sigh.

"I feel safe again," he murmured. "I am certain that I was on the point of suggesting that she send up for Maud. We might have taken them out together to-night, Mr. Waddington—had dinner at Frascati's, drunk cheap champagne, and gone to a music-hall!"

"Burton," Mr. Waddington said calmly, "I do not for a moment believe that we should so far have forgotten ourselves. I don't know how you are feeling, but the atmosphere of this place is most distasteful to me. These tawdry decorations are positively vicious. The odor, too, is insufferable."

Burton rose hastily to his feet.

"I quite agree with you," he said. "Let us get out as quickly as we can."

"Something," Mr. Waddington went on, "ought to be done to prevent the employment of young women in a public place. It is enough to alter one's whole opinion of the sex to see a brazen-looking creature like that lounging about the bar, and to be compelled to be served by her if one is in need of a little refreshment."

Burton nodded his approbation.

"How we could ever have found our way into the place," he said, "I can't imagine."

"A moment or two ago," Mr. Waddington groaned, "you were thinking of sending up for Maud."

Burton, at this, wiped the perspiration from his forehead.

"Please don't remind me of it," he begged. "Let us get away as quickly as we can."

The young lady leaned over from the bar, holding out a hand, none too clean, on which sparkled several rings.

"Well, you're in a great hurry all at once," she remarked. "Can't you stay a bit longer?"—She glanced at the clock.—"Maud will be down in ten minutes. You're not going away after all this time without leaving a message or something for her, Mr. Burton, surely?"

Burton looked at her across the counter as one might look at some strange creature from a foreign world, a creature to be pitied, perhaps, nothing more.

"I am afraid," he said, "that mine was only a chance visit. Pray remember me to Miss Maud, if you think it would be any satisfaction to her."

The young woman stared at him.

"My, but you are funny!" she declared. "You were always such a one for acting! I'll give her your love, never fear. I shall tell her you'll be round later in the day. On Thursday night, then," she added, turning to Mr. Waddington, "if I don't see you before, and if you really mean you're not going to stay for lunch. I'll meet you at the corner as usual."

Mr. Waddington turned away without apparently noticing the outstretched hand. He raised his hat, however, most politely. "If I should be prevented," he began,—The young woman glared at him.

"Look here, I've had enough of this shilly-shallying!" she exclaimed sharply. "Do you mean taking me out on Thursday or do you not?—because there's a gentleman who comes in here for his beer most every morning who's most anxious I should dine out with him my next night off. I've only to say the word and he'll fetch me in a taxicab. I'm not sure that he hasn't got a motor of his own. No more nonsense, if you please, Mr. Waddington," she continued, shaking out her duster. "Is that an engagement with you on Thursday night, or is it not?"

Mr. Waddington measured with his eye the distance to the door. He gripped Burton's arm and looked over his shoulder.

"It is not," he said firmly.

They left the place a little precipitately. Once in the open air, however, they seemed quickly to recover their equanimity. Burton breathed a deep sigh of relief.

"I must go and change my clothes, Mr. Waddington," he declared. "I don't know how on earth I could have come out looking such a sight. I feel like working, too."

"Such a lovely morning!" Mr. Waddington sighed, gazing up at the sky. "If only one could escape from these hateful streets and get out into the country for a few hours! Have you ever thought of travelling abroad, Burton?"

"Have you?" Burton asked.

Mr. Waddington nodded.

"I have it in my mind at the present moment," he admitted. "Imagine the joy of wandering about in Rome or Florence, say, just looking at the buildings one has heard of all one's life! And the picture galleries—just fancy the picture galleries, Burton! What a dream! Have you ever been to Paris?"

"Never," Burton confessed sadly.

"Nor I," Mr. Waddington continued. "I have been lying awake at nights lately, thinking of Versailles. Why do we waste our time here at all, I wonder, in this ugly little corner of the universe?"

Burton smiled.

"There is something of the hedonist about you, Mr. Waddington," he remarked. "To me these multitudes of people are wonderful. I seem driven always to seek for light in the crowded places."

Mr. Waddington called a taxicab.

"Can I give you a lift?" he asked. "I have no sale until the afternoon. I shall go to one of the galleries. I want to escape from the memory of the last half-hour!"



CHAPTER XX

ANOTHER COMPLICATION

There came a time when Burton finished his novel. He wrapped it up very carefully in brown paper and set out to call upon his friend the sub-editor. He gained his sanctum without any particular trouble and was warmly greeted.

"Why haven't you brought us anything lately?" the sub-editor asked.

Burton tapped the parcel which he was carrying.

"I have written a novel," he said.

The sub-editor was not in the least impressed—in fact he shook his head.

"There are too many novels," he declared.

"I am afraid," Burton replied, "that there will have to be one more, or else I must starve."

"Why have you brought it here, anyhow?"

"I thought you might tell me what to do with it," Burton answered, diffidently.

The sub-editor sighed and drew a sheet of note-paper towards him. He wrote a few lines and put them in an envelope.

"There is a letter of introduction to a publisher," he explained. "Frankly, I don't think it is worth the paper it is written on. Nowadays, novels are published or not, either according to their merit or the possibility of their appealing to the public taste."

Burton looked at the address.

"Thank you very much," he said. "I will take this in myself."

"When are you going to bring us something?" the sub-editor inquired.

"I am going home to try and write something now," Burton replied. "It is either that or the pawnshop."

The sub-editor nodded.

"Novels are all very well for amusement," he said, "but they don't bring in bread and cheese. Come right up to me as soon as you've got something."

Burton left his novel at the address which the sub-editor had given him, and went back to his lodgings. He let himself in with a latchkey. The caretaker of the floor bustled up to him as he turned towards the door of his room.

"Don't know that I've done right, sir," she remarked, doubtfully. "There was a young person here, waiting about to see you, been waiting the best part of an hour. I let her into your sitting-room."

"Any name?" Burton asked.

The caretaker looked thoughtfully up at the ceiling.

"Said she was your wife, sir. Sorry if I've done wrong. It came over me afterwards that I'd been a bit rash."

Burton threw open the door of his sitting-room and closed it quickly behind him. It was indeed Ellen who was sitting in the most uncomfortable chair, with her arms folded, in an attitude of grim but patient resignation. She was still wearing the hat with the wing, the mauve scarf, the tan shoes, and the velveteen gown. A touch of the Parisienne, however, was supplied to her costume by a black veil dotted over with purple spots. Her taste in perfumes was obviously unaltered.

"Ellen!" he exclaimed.

"Well?" she replied.

As a monosyllabic start to a conversation, Ellen's "Well?" created difficulties. Instead of his demanding an explanation, she was doing it. Burton was conscious that his opening was not brilliant.

"Why, this is quite a surprise!" he said. "I had no idea you were here."

"Dare say not," she answered. "Didn't know I was coming myself till I found myself on the doorstep. Kind of impulse, I suppose. What have you been doing to little Alf?"

Burton looked at her in bewilderment.

"Doing to the boy?" he repeated. "I haven't seen him since I saw you last."

"That's all very well for a tale," Ellen replied, "but you're not going to tell me that he's come into these ways naturally."

"What ways?" Burton exclaimed. "My dear Ellen, you must be a little more explicit. I tell you that I have not seen the child since I was at Garden Green. I am utterly ignorant of anything which may have happened to him."

Ellen remained entirely unconvinced.

"There's things about," she declared, "which I don't understand nor don't want to. First of all you go dotty. Now the same sort of thing seems to have come to little Alf, and what I want to know is what you mean by it? It's all rubbish for you to expect me to believe that he's taken to this naturally."

Burton put his hand to his head for a moment.

"Go on," he said. "Unless you tell me what has happened to Alfred, I cannot even attempt to help you."

"Well, I'll tell you fast enough," Ellen assured him, "though you needn't take that for a proof that I believe what you say. He's been a changed child ever since you were down last. Came home from the school and complained about the other boys not washing properly. Wanted a bath every day, and made me buy him a new toothbrush. Brushes his hair and washes his hands every time he goes out. Took a dislike to his tie and burned it. Plagued me to death till I got him a new suit of clothes—plain, ugly things, too, he would have. He won't have nothing to do with his friends, chucked playing marbles or hopscotch, and goes out in the country, picking flowers. Just to humor him, the first lot he brought home I put in one of those vases that ma brought us from Yarmouth, and what do you think he did?—threw the vase out of the window and bought with his own pocket money a plain china bowl."

Burton listened in blank amazement. As yet the light had not come.

"Go on," he murmured. "Anything else?"

"Up comes his master a few days ago," Ellen continued. "Fairly scared me to death. Said the boy showed signs of great talent in drawing. Talent in drawing, indeed! I'll give him talent! Wanted me to have him go to night school and pay for extra lessons. Said he thought the boy would turn out an artist. Nice bit of money there is in that!"

"What did you tell him?" Burton asked.

"I told him to stop putting silly ideas into the child's head," Ellen replied. "We don't want to make no artist of Alfred. Into an office he's got to go as soon as he's passed his proper standard, and that's what I told his schoolmaster. Calling Alf a genius, indeed!"

"Is this all that's troubling you?" Burton inquired calmly.

"All?" Ellen cried. "Bless my soul, as though it wasn't enough! A nice harmless boy as ever was until that day that you came down. You don't seem to understand. He's like a little old man. Chooses his words, corrects my grammar, keeps himself so clean you can almost smell the soap. What I say is that it isn't natural in a child of his age."

Burton smiled.

"Well, really," he said, "I don't see anything to worry about in what you have told me."

"Don't you!" Ellen replied. "Well, just you listen to me and answer my question. I left Alf alone with you while I changed my—while I looked after the washing the day you came, and what I want to know is, did you give him one of those things that you talked to me about?"

"I certainly did not," Burton answered.

Then a light broke in upon him. Ellen saw the change in his face.

"Well, what is it?" she asked sharply. "I can see you know all about it."

"There were the two beans you threw out of the window," he said. "He must have picked up one."

"Beans, indeed!" Ellen replied, scornfully. "Do you mean to tell me that a bean would work all this mischief in the child?"

"I happen to know that it would."

"Comes of picking up things in the street!" Ellen exclaimed. "I'll give it him when I get back, I will!"

"You must forgive me," Burton said, "but I really don't see what you have to complain about. From what you tell me, I should consider the boy very much improved."

"Improved!" Ellen repeated. "An unnatural little impudent scallywag of a child! You don't think I want a schoolmaster in knickerbockers about the place all the time? Found fault with my clothes yesterday, hid some of the ornaments in the parlor, and I caught him doing a sketch of a woman the other day with not a shred of clothes on. Said it was a copy of some statue in the library. It may be your idea of how a boy nine years old should go on, but it isn't mine, and that's straight."

Burton sighed.

"My dear Ellen," he said, "we do not look at this matter from the same point of view, but fortunately as you will say, unfortunately from my point of view, the change in Alfred is not likely to prove lasting. You will find in another few weeks that he will be himself again."

"Don't believe it," Ellen declared. "He's as set in his ways now as a little old man."

Burton shook his head.

"It won't last, I know it."

"Lasts with you all right!" she snapped.

Burton opened his little silver box.

"It lasts with me only as long as these little beans last," he replied. "You see, I have only two left. When they are gone, I shall be back again."

"If you think," Ellen exclaimed, "that you're going to march into Clematis Villa just when you feel like it, and behave as though nothing has happened, all I can say, my man, is that you're going to be disappointed! You've kept away so long you can keep away for good. We can do without you, me and Alf."

Burton still held the box in his hand.

"I suppose," he ventured slowly, "I couldn't persuade you to take one?"

Ellen rose to her feet. She threw the scarf around her neck, buttoned her gloves, and shook out her skirt. She picked up the satchel which she had been carrying and prepared to depart.

"If you say anything more to me about your beastly beans," she said, "I'll lose my temper, and that's straight. Can you tell me how to bring little Alf to himself again? That's all I want to know."

"Time will do that, unfortunately," Burton assured her. "Where is he this afternoon?

"It's his half-holiday," Ellen replied, in a tone of disgust, "and where do you think he's gone? Gone to a museum to look at some statues! The schoolmaster called for him. They've gone off together. All I can say is that if he don't turn natural again before long, you can have him. He don't belong to me no longer."

"I am willing to take the responsibility," Burton replied, "if it is necessary. Will you let me give you some tea?"

"I want nothing from you except my weekly money that the law provides for," Ellen answered fiercely. "You can keep your tea. And mind what I say, too. It's no use coming down to Clematis Villa and talking about the effect of the bean having worn off and being yourself again. You seem pretty comfortable here and you can stay here until I'm ready for you. Oh, bother holding the door open!" she added, angrily. "I hate such tricks! Get out of the way and let me pass. I can let myself out. More fool me for coming! I might have known you'd have nothing sensible to say."

"I'm afraid," Burton admitted, "that we do rather look at this matter from different points of view, but, as I told you before, you will find very soon that Alfred will be just the same as he used to be."

"If he don't alter," Ellen declared, looking back from the door, "you'll find him here one day by Carter Patterson's, with a label around his neck. I'm not one for keeping children about the place that know more than their mothers. I give him another three weeks, and not a day longer. What do you think was the last thing he did? Went and had his hair cut—wanted to get rid of his curl, he said."

"I can't blame him for that," Burton remarked, smiling. "I never thought it becoming. Will you shake hands, Ellen, before you go?"

"I won't!" she replied, drawing up her skirt in genteel fashion. "I want nothing to do with you. Only, if he don't alter, well, just you look out, for you'll find him on your doorstep."

She departed in a "Lily of the Valley" scent and little fragments of purple fluff. Burton threw himself into an easy-chair.

"If one could only find the tree," he muttered to himself. "What a life for the boy! Poor little chap!"