Like one of those nymphs to whom Don had detected her resemblance, Flamby, throughout the genial months, often betook herself at early morning to a certain woodland stream far from all beaten tracks and inaccessible from the highroads. Narcissi carpeted the sloping banks above a pool like a crystal mirror, into which the tiny rivulet purled through forest ways sacred to the wild things and rarely profaned by foot of man. In their shy, brief hour, violets lent their sweetness to the spot, and at dusk came quiet creatures afoot and awing timidly to slake their thirst at the magic fountain. A verdant awning, fanlike, swayed above, and perhaps in some forgotten day an altar had stood in the shady groves which protected all approaches to this pool whereby Keats might have dreamed his wonder dreams.

One morning as she stepped out like Psyche from her bath, and stood for a moment where an ardent sunbeam entering slyly through the bower above wrapped her in golden embrace, upon that sylvan mystery intruded a sound which blanched the roses on Flamby's cheeks and seemed to turn her body to marble. It was a very slight sound, no more than a metallic click; but like the glance of Gyges it stilled her heart's beating. She had never known such helpless fear; for, without daring, or having power, to turn her head, she divined who hid beside the pool and the purpose of his coming.

In great leaps her heart resumed its throbbing, and Flamby, trembling and breathless, sprang into the undergrowth upon that side of the pool farthest from the high bank which masked the intruder and there crouched pitifully, watching. Another than she might have failed to discern him, so craftily did he crawl away; but Flamby, daughter of the woods, saw the wriggling figure, and knew it; moreover she knew, by the familiarity with the pathway which he displayed, that this was not the first time Sir Jacques had visited the spot.

She returned to the cottage, her courage restored and a cold anger in her breast, to find her mother alternately laughing and sobbing—because Michael Duveen would be home that day on leave. Whatever plan Flamby had cherished she now resigned, recognising that only by silence could she avert a tragedy. But from that morning the invisible guardians of the pool lamented a nymph who came no more, and the old joy of the woods was gone for Flamby. At one moment she felt that she could never again suffer the presence of Sir Jacques, at another that if she must remain in Lower Charleswood and not die of shame she must pretend that she did not suspect him to have been the intruder. The subterfuge, ostrich-like, woman-like, finally was adopted; and meeting Sir Jacques in Babylon Lane she managed to greet him civilly, employing her mother's poor state of health as an excuse for discontinuing her visits to Hatton Towers. But if Flamby's passionate spirit had had its way Sir Jacques that day must have met the fate of Candaules at the hands of this modern Nyssia.

* * * * *

Standing there beneath the giant elm, Flamby lived again through the sunshine and the shadows of the past, her thoughts dwelling bitterly upon the memory of Sir Jacques and of his tireless persecution, which, from the time that she ceased her visits to Hatton Towers, became more overt and pursued her almost to the day of Sir Jacques' death. Finally, and inevitably, she thought again of Paul Mario, and still thinking of him returned to Dovelands Cottage.

Mrs. Duveen had gone into the town, an expedition which would detain her for the greater part of the day, since she walked slowly, and the road was hilly. Therefore Flamby proceeded to set the house in order. A little red-breasted robin hopped in at the porch, peeped around the sitting-room and up at the gleaming helmet above the mantelpiece, then finding the apartment empty hopped on into the kitchen to watch Flamby at work. Sunlight gladdened the garden and the orchard where blackbirds were pecking the cherries; a skylark rose from the meadow opposite the cottage, singing rapturously of love and youth—so that presently, the while she worked, Flamby began to sing, too.

IX

It was late on the following afternoon when the solicitors left Hatton Towers, and Paul, who detested business of every description, heaved a great sigh of relief as he watched the dust resettle in the fir avenue behind the car which was to bear the two legal gentlemen to the station. The adviser of the late Sir Jacques had urged him to keep up Hatton Towers, "in the interests of the county," even if he lived there only occasionally, and his own solicitor seemed to agree with his colleague that it would be a pity to sell so fine a property. A yearning for solitude and meditation was strong upon Paul, and taking a stout ash stick he went out on to the terrace at the rear of the house, crossed the lawns and made his way down to the winding path which always, now, he associated with Don.

An hour's walk brought him to the brink of the hilly crescent which holds the heathland of the county as a giant claw grasping a platter. Below him lay mile upon mile of England, the emerald meadows sharply outlined by their hedges, cornfields pale patches of gold, roofs of farms deep specks of grateful red, and the roads blending the whole into an intricate pattern like that of some vast Persian carpet. Upon its lighter tones the heat created a mirage of running water.

Human activity was represented by faint wisps of smoke, and by specks which one might only determine to be men by dint of close scrutiny, until a train crept out from the tunnel away to the left and crossed the prospect like a hurried caterpillar, leaving little balls of woolly vapour to float away idly upon the tideless air. A tang of the heather rose even to that height, and mingled its scent with the perfume of the many wildflowers cloaking the hillside. The humming of bees and odd chirping of grasshoppers spoke the language of summer, and remotely below childish voices and laughter joined in the gladness.

Paul began to descend the slope. In the joyous beauty of English summer there was something at variance with his theme, and he found himself farther than ever from the task which he had taken up. Almost he was tempted to revise his estimate of the worth of things worldly and of the value of traditional beliefs. His imagination lingered delightedly over a tiny hamlet nestling about a Norman church as the brood about the mother. He pictured the knight of the Cross kneeling before the hidden altar and laying his sword and his life at the feet of the Man of Sorrows. He saw, as it is granted to poets to see, the plumed Cavalier leading his lady to that same altar and saw the priest bless them in the holy name. Almost he could read the inscriptions upon the tombs which told of generations of country gentlemen who had worshipped at the simple shrine, unquestioning, undoubting. The Roundheads dour, with their pitiless creed, had failed to destroy its fragrant sanctity, which lingered in those foot-worn aisles like the memory of incense, the echo of a monkish prayer. Was it all a great delusion?—or were our fathers wise in their simplicity? In the past men had died for every faith; to-day it would be hard to find men having any faith to die for.

A shadow crept over his mind, and although in his preoccupation he failed to observe the fact, it corresponded with the coming of an ominous cloud over the hill crest above and behind him; for we are but human lutes upon which nature plays at will, now softly and gently, now sounding chords of gladness, now touching to deep melancholy and the grandeur of despair. The promise of those days of tropical heat was about to be fulfilled, and already, three miles behind, black banks lowered over the countryside turning its smile to a frown.

But even the remote booming of thunder failed to awaken Paul to the reality of the brewing tempest; it reached him in his daydream, but as a message not of the wrath of heaven but of the wrath of man. He mistook it for the ceaseless voice of the guns and weaved it into his brooding as Wagner wove the Valkyrie theme into the score of the Nibeluengen. A faint breeze whispered through the tree-tops.

Paul came to the foot of the slope; and below him ran a continuous gully roofed over by stunted trees and conforming to the hillside as a brim conforms to a hat. Entrance might be made through any one of several gaps, and Paul, scrambling down, found himself in a dark tunnel, its brown, leafy floor patched at irregular intervals by grey light reflected from the creeping thunder cloud. Right and left it went, this silent gallery, and although he was unaware of the fact, it joined other like galleries which encircled the slopes and met and intercrossed so that one might wander for hours along these mystic aisles of the hills. Below again, beyond a sloping woody thicket, lay the meadows and farmlands sweeping smoothly onward to the heath. Now, the shadow of the storm had draped hillside and valley and was touching the bloom of the heather with the edge of its sable robe. Bird voices were still and all life was hushed before the coming of the tempest. The ghostly trees bending low above the aisles whispered fearfully one to another, and about Paul was a darkness like that of a crypt. The earth and her children shrank as from an impending blow.

Several large raindrops, heralds of the torrent to come, fell through an opening above and pattered upon the dusty carpet at Paul's feet. He glanced upward at the darkening pall which seemed to rest upon the hill top. Its oppressive blackness suggested weight, so that one trembled for the stability of the chalky scarp which must uphold that ebon canopy. Paul moved further along the aisle to a spot where the foliage was unbroken, as rain began a rapid tattoo upon the leafy roof. In the following instant the hillside was illuminated wildly as lightning wrote its message in angular characters across the curtain of darkness. Life cowered affrighted to the bosom of mother earth. The raindrops ceased, awaiting the crashing word of the thunder. It came, deafening, awesome; buffeting this bluff and that rebounding, rebounding again and muttering down the valleys and the aisles of the hills. Then burst the rain, torrential, tropical.

In the emotional vision of Paul, horror rode the tempest. Man, discarding the emblem of the Cross and prostrating himself at the feet of strange idols, now was chained to a planet deserted by God, doomed and left to the mercy of monstrous earth spirits revitalised by homage and made potent again. To this gruesome fancy he resigned himself with the spiritual abandonment whereof he was capable and his capacity for which had made his work what it was: he grovelled before a nameless power which dwelt in primeval caverns of the underworld and spoke with the voice of the storm. Fear touched him, because the Divine face was turned from man. Awe wrapped him about, because the Word had failed to redeem, and a new message must be given. The Prince of Darkness became a real figure—and seemed to be very near him. As if the lightning had been a holy fire, with it enlightenment burst upon his mind, and he saw himself no longer unwanted, flotsam, a thing supine, but a buckler—a shield—one chosen and elected to a mighty task. The words of Don had first raised the curtain; now it was rent as the Temple veil and his eyes were dazzled. The Gate of Tophet had opened and Something had crept out upon the world; it was for him to cast It back into the Pit!

He seemed to grow physically cold. Again the lightning blazed; and Paul, starting as one rudely awakened from sleep, saw that a man was standing close beside him.

X

That inclination to the marvellous which belongs to creative temperaments led Paul to invest the stranger with the attributes of an apparition; he seemed to be a materialisation of the darkness which cloaked the modern world, a menace and a challenge; to stand for Lucifer. He was a man above average height, having a vast depth of chest and weight of limb, a strong, massive man. His suit of blue serge displayed his statuesque proportions to full advantage, and Paul's all-embracing glance did not fail to take note of the delicacy of hand and foot which redeemed the great frame from any suggestion of grossness. The stranger's head was bare, for he held in one gloved hand a hard black felt hat, flat topped and narrow of brim; and his small head, with close tight curls, set upon a neck like that of a gladiator, was markedly Neronian. The hue of this virile curling hair was a most uncompromising and fiery red, and equally red were the short moustaches and close-cut curling beard. It was a remarkable head, the head of a pagan emperor, rendered even more statuesque by an unusual ivory pallid skin and by large and somewhat prominent eyes of limpid golden brown.

He was staring at Paul, as Paul was staring at him; and, out of the darkness which instantly fell again, as the booming of thunder went rolling, demoniac, along the valleys, he spoke. His voice was rich and cultured.

"I fear I startled you—and you certainly startled me. I did not observe your approach."

Paul laughed. "Nor I yours. But I believe I was preoccupied, for I failed to notice the gathering storm until the rain attracted my attention."

"I can guess at the nature of your preoccupation," continued the deep voice. "Unless the illustrated press has deceived me I have the pleasure of sharing this shelter with Mr. Paul Mario."

"That is my name. May I ask if you are one of my neighbours?"

"I am called Jules Thessaly, and I have made Babylon Hall locally unpopular for some time past."

"A stormy meeting but none the less a welcome one, Mr. Thessaly. We have several mutual friends. Captain Courtier spoke of you to me only yesterday."

"Captain 'Don' Courtier?—a clever artist and I believe a useful officer. I should have appreciated an opportunity of meeting him again. He has leave?"

"A few days; but the usual demands upon his time, poor fellow. You were also, I think, a friend of my late uncle?"

"I was acquainted with Sir Jacques—yes. Mr. Mario, our present meeting is more gratifying to me than I can hope to express. I may say that I had designed to call upon you had Fate not taken a hand."

"Your visit would have been very welcome. I have been so busy with unavoidable affairs since my arrival, that I fear I have quite neglected social duties. With one or two exceptions I know nothing of my neighbours. May I count upon the pleasure of your company at dinner to-night?"

"You forestall me, Mr. Mario. I was about to ask you to come over to me. Apart from my natural interest in yourself there is a matter which I particularly desire to discuss with you. I trust you will excuse my apparent rudeness, but indeed I know you will. Social dogma is the armour of the parvenu."

Paul laughed again; Jules Thessaly was a welcome stimulant. "Clearly we have many things in common," he said. "I shall be more than glad to join you. Fascinating rumours are afloat concerning your collection of Eastern wonders. May I hope that it is housed at Babylon Hall?"

A blaze of lightning came, illuminating the two figures, showing Paul Mario's fine face turned expectantly toward Jules Thessaly, and alive with an eagerness almost boyish; showing the Neronian countenance of the other, softened by a smile which revealed small, strong teeth beneath the crisp red moustache.

"Rumour is a lying jade, Mr. Mario. My collection I admit is a good one, but there are at least three others in Europe and two in America which are better. It is unique in one particular: the section containing religious objects, totems, and gods of all ages is more complete than that of any other collector, or of any museum. The bulk of it unfortunately is at my house in London."

"In these days of air raids would it not be safer at Babylon Hall?"

"If all the gods to whom man has offered prayer cannot protect their images in Park Lane, they cannot protect them in Lower Charleswood."

"Diogenes speaks from his tub!"

"The truth is often cynical."

"I fear that life has not a single illusion left for you."

"All men work like rebels, Mr. Mario, to win freedom from youth's sweetest mistress—illusion, and spend the twilight of old age groping for what they have lost."

"Yours must be a barren outlook. If I thought all the world a mere dream of some wanton god I should lay down my pen—for I should have nothing to say."

"There can be nothing really new to say until man climbs up to another planet or until creatures of another planet climb down to this one."

"A doctrine of despair."

"Not at all—unless for the materialist."

"How is that?"

"Would you trammel the soul with the shackles of the flesh?"

"You mean that literature and art persistently look in the gutter for subjects when they would be more worthily employed in questioning the stars?"

"I mean that if literature and art were not trades, inspiration might have a chance."

"And you regard inspiration as a spiritual journey?"

"Certainly; and imagination as the memory of the soul. There is no such thing as intellectual creation. We are instruments only. John Newman did not invent The Dream of Gerontius; he remembered it. There is a strain in the music of Samson et Dalila which was sung in the temples of Nineveh, where it must have been heard by Saint Saens. The wooing of Tarone in your Francesca of the Lilies is a faithful account of a scene enacted in Florence during the feuds between the Amidei and Buondelmonti."

Paul Mario fell silent. The storm was passing, and now raged over the remote hills which looked out upon the sea; but the darkness prevailed, and he became aware of a vague disquiet which stirred within him. The conversation of Jules Thessaly impressed him strangely, not because of its hard brilliance, but because of a masterful certainty in that quiet voice. His words concerning Newman and Saint Saens were spoken as though he meant them to be accepted literally—and there was something terrifying in the idea. For he averred that which many have suspected, but which few have claimed to know. Presently Paul found speech again.

"You believe, as I believe, that our 'instincts' are the lessons of earlier incarnations. Perhaps you are a disciple of Pythagoras, Mr. Thessaly?"

"I am, in one sense. I am a disciple of his Master."

"Do you refer to Orpheus?"

Jules Thessaly hesitated, but the pause was scarcely perceptible. "The Orphic traditions certainly embody at least one cosmic truth."

"And it is?"

"That for every man there is a perfect maid, and for every maid a perfect lover; that their union will be eternal, but that until it is accomplished each must remain incomplete—a work in two volumes of which one is missing."

"Would you then revive the Eleusinian Mysteries?"

"Why not?"

"You would scandalise society!"

"In other words become the pet of the petty. You care as little for the institution called 'Society' as I do, Mr. Mario. Moreover, there is no Society nowadays. Murray's has taken its place."

Again the lightning flashed—less vividly; and in the glimpse thus afforded him of the speaker's face Paul derived the impression that Jules Thessaly was laughing, but of this he could not be sure. The thunder when it came spoke with a muted voice, for the storm was speeding coastward, and a light cool breeze stole through the aisles of the hills. A grey eerie light began to spread ghostly along the gallery. The ebon cloud was breaking, but torrents of rain continued to descend. Paul's keen intuition told him that Jules Thessaly was indisposed to pursue the Orphic discussion further at the moment, but he realised that the owner of Babylon Hall was no ordinary man, but one who had delved deeply into lore which had engaged much of his own attention. He found himself looking forward with impatient curiosity to his visit to the home of this new acquaintance.

"You are comparatively a new-comer in Lower Charleswood, Mr. Thessaly?"

"Yes, Babylon Hall had been vacant for some years, having formerly belonged to a certain Major Rushin, a retired Anglo-Indian of sixty-five, with a nutmeg liver and a penchant for juvenile society. He was drowned one morning in the lake which lies beyond the house, whilst bathing with three young ladies who were guests of his at the time. He was one of the pillars of the late Sir Jacques' church."

Paul laughed outright. "Do you quarrel with the whole of humanity, Mr. Thessaly?"

"Not at all. I love every creature that has life; I share the very tremors of the sheep driven to the slaughter-house. Human sorrow affects me even more profoundly."

"But you are hotly intolerant of human hypocrisy? So am I."

"Yet it may be one of the principles of nature. Witness the leaf insect."

"You don't believe it to be, though. You probably regard it as a hateful disguise imposed upon man by a moral code contrary to that of nature."

"Mr. Mario, your words contain the germ of a law upon the acceptance of which I believe humanity's spiritual survival to depend."

The elfin light was growing brighter by perceptible degrees; and Paul, looking toward the speaker, now was able to discern him as a shadowy bulk, without definite outline, but impressive, pagan—as a granite god, or one of those broken pillars of Medinet Habu. Either because Jules Thessaly had moved nearer to him, or by reason of an optical delusion produced by the half-light, the space between them seemed to have grown less—not only physically, but spiritually. The curves of their astral selves were sweeping inward to a point of contact which Paul knew subconsciously would be electric, odic, illuminating. He felt the driving force of Jules Thessaly's personality, and it struck from the lyre of his genius strange harmonious chords. He knew, as some of the ancients knew, that the very insect we crush beneath our feet is crushed not by accident, but in accordance with a design vast beyond human conception; and he wondered what part in his life this strange, powerful man was cast to play. His thoughts found expression.

"There is no such thing as chance," he said dreamily.

"No," answered Jules Thessaly. "There is no such thing in the universe. Our meeting to-day was an appointment."

XI

Jules Thessaly, like the Indian rope trick, was a kind of phenomenon twice removed. In every capital throughout the world one heard of him; of his wealth, of his art collection, of his financial interests; but one rarely met a man who actually claimed to know him although every second man one met knew another who did.

When he acquired Babylon Hall, for so long vacant, the county was stirred from end to end. Lower Charleswood, which lacked a celebrity, felt assured at last of its place in history and ceased to cast envious glances toward that coy hamlet of the hills which enshrined the cottage of George Meredith. The Vicar of High Fielding, who contributed occasional "Turn-overs" to the Globe, investigated the published genealogy of the great man, and caused it to be known that Jules Thessaly was a French Levantine who had studied at Oxford and Goettingen, a millionaire, an accomplished musician, and an amateur of art who had exhibited a picture in the Paris Salon. He was a member (according to this authority) of five clubs, had other country seats, as well as a house in Park Lane, was director of numberless companies—and was unmarried. Miss Kingsbury called upon the reverend gentleman for further particulars.

But when at last Jules Thessaly actually arrived, Lower Charleswood experienced a grievous disappointment. He brought no "introductions," he paid no courtesy calls, and those who sought him at Babylon Hall almost invariably were informed that Mr. Thessaly was abroad. When he entertained, his guests arrived from whence no one knew, but usually in opulent cars, and thereby departed no one knew whither. Lower Charleswood was patient, for great men are eccentric; but in time Lower Charleswood to its intense astonishment and mortification realised that Jules Thessaly was not interested in "the county." Lower Charleswood beheld itself snubbed, but preferred to hide its wounds from the world, and therefore sent Jules Thessaly ceremoniously to Coventry. He was voted a vulgar plutocrat and utterly impossible. When it leaked out that Lady James knew him well and that Sir Jacques frequently dined at Babylon Hall, Miss Kingsbury said, "Lady James? Well, of course"—And Sir Jacques, as the only eligible substitute for a real notability, was permitted a certain license. He was "peculiar," no doubt, but he had built a charming church and was a bachelor.

Urged to the task by Miss Kingsbury, the Vicar of High Fielding made further and exhaustive enquiries. He discovered that it was impossible to trace Jules Thessaly's year at Oxford for the same reason that it was impossible to trace anything else in his history. One man knew another man whose brother was at Oriel with Thessaly; a second man had heard of a third man who distinctly remembered him at Magdalen. The vicar's cousin, a stockbroker, said that Thessaly's father had been a Greek adventurer. Miss Kingsbury's agent—who sometimes succeeded in disposing of her pictures—assured Miss Kingsbury that Jules Thessaly was a Jew. When war began all the county whispered that Jules Thessaly was a big shareholder in Krupps.

The constitution of his establishment at Babylon Hall was attacked in the local press. Babylon Hall was full of dangerous aliens. Strains of music had been heard proceeding from the Hall at most unseemly hours—by the village innkeeper. Orgies were held there. But Jules Thessaly remained silent, unmoved, invisible. So that at the time of Sir Jacques' death Lower Charleswood had passed through three phases: pique, wonder, apathy. One or two folks had met Thessaly—but always by accident; had acclaimed him a wonderful man possessing the reserve of true genius. Finally, Miss Kingsbury had met him—in Lower Charleswood post office, and by noon of the following day, all "the county" knew that he was "a charming recluse with the soul of a poet."

And this was the man with whom Paul Mario paced along the green aisles toward the point where they crossed that Pilgrim's Way which linking town to village, village to hamlet, lies upon the hills like a rosary on a nun's bosom.

"My car is waiting below," said Jules Thessaly. "You will probably prefer to drive back?"

Paul assented. He was breathing deeply of the sweet humid air, pungent with a thousand fresh scents and the intoxicating fragrance of rain-kissed loam. The sound of greedily drinking plant things arose from the hillside. Beyond the purple heath hung the midnight curtain, embroidered fitfully with silver, and he removed his hat that the cool breeze might touch him. Hatless he was magnificently picturesque; Antinoeus spared to maturity; the nature-worshipper within him stirred to quickness by magic perfumes arising from the breast of Mother Earth, he resembled that wonderful statue of the Bithynian which shows him as Dionysus the Twice-born, son of the raincloud, lover of the verdure.

"The world," said Jules Thessaly, "is waiting for you."

Through his abstract Orphic dreams the words reached Paul's mind; and they were oddly familiar. Who had spoken them—now, and once before? He awoke, and remembered. Don had said that the world awaited him. He turned and glanced at his companion. Jules Thessaly was regarding him fixedly.

"You spoke," said Paul. "Pardon my abstraction; but what did you say?"

"I said that when Nature endows a man at once with the genius of Dante and the appearance of a Greek god, that man holds the world in the hollow of his hand. He was born with a purpose. He dares not seek to evade his destiny."

Paul met the glance of the golden, prominent eyes, and it held him enthralled. "I do not seek to evade it," he replied slowly. "I accept it; but I am afraid."

A low-pitched powerful French car stood at the foot of the slope, the chauffeur in his seat and a footman standing beside the open door. Poised ethereally betwixt solid earth and some sphere remote peopled by Greek nature-myths, Paul found himself beside Jules Thessaly, and being borne swiftly, strongly upward to the hills. At the gap beyond the toll-gate, where one may view a prospect unique in all the county, the car stopped, perhaps in obedience to a summons of the master. From the open window Paul looked out over the valley; and a rainbow linked the crescent of the hills, point to point. Backed by the murk of the moving storm, Babylon Hall looked like a giant sarcophagus behind which Titan hands had draped a sable curtain; and it seemed to Paul as he looked, wondering, that the arc of heaven-born colours which no brush may reproduce, rested upon the hidden roof of Dovelands Cottage, crossed Babylon Hall, and swept down to the rain mist of the horizon, down to the distant sea. The palette of the gods began to fade from view, and Paul turned impulsively to his companion.

Jules Thessaly, his elbows resting upon his knees, was staring down, apparently at the flat-crowned black hat which he held in his hands. The car had resumed its smooth progress.

"An omen!" cried Paul. "The world is not past redemption!"

He spoke wildly, emotionally, not choosing his words, scarce knowing what he desired to convey. Jules Thessaly glanced aside at him.

"The world desires redemption," he said. "It is for you to gratify the world's desire."

XII

The mystery which steals out from the woods, creeps down from the hills, and lurks beneath the shadowed hedgerows at beckoning of dusk, was abroad and potent when Paul Mario that evening walked up Babylon Lane towards the Hall. Elemental forces, which the ancients clothed in semi-human shape and named and feared, moved beside him and breathed strange counsels in his ear. The storm had released uneasy spirits from their bondage in crannies of primeval hills, and it was on such a night as this that many a child has glimpsed the Folk tripping lightly around those fairy-rings which science would have us believe due to other causes than the mystic dance. The Pipes of Pan were calling, and up in the aisles of the hills moonbeams slyly sought and found bare-limbed dryads darting from the eagerness of wooing fauns. Progress has banished those Pandean spirits from the woodlands, but the moon is the mother of magic, and her children steal out, furtive, half fearful, when she raises her lamp as of old.

Between prescience and imagination the borderline is ill defined. Although Dovelands Cottage was seemingly sleeping, or deserted, Paul pictured Flamby standing by the stile beyond, where the orchard path began. And when, nearing it, he paused, looking to the right, there was she, a figure belonging to the elfin world of which he dreamed, and seemingly on the point of climbing over the stile.

"Flamby!" he cried.

She turned, descended, and came forward slowly, a wild-haired nymph; and that odd shyness which sat so ill upon her was manifest in her manner. She had expected Paul; had really been waiting for him—and she felt that he knew it.

"Were you dreaming in the twilight?" he asked, merrily.

Flamby stood a little apart from him, staring down at the dusty road. "No," she replied. "I was scared, so I came out."

"Scared? Of what?"

"Don't know. Just scared. Mother is over at Mrs. Fawkes', and it's not likely I was going with her."

"Why not?"

"She hates me," explained Flamby, with brief simplicity.

"But why should she hate you?"

"Don't know," said Flamby, busily burrowing a little hole in the road with the heel of her left shoe. Her shoes were new ones, and boasted impudently high heels. She had been proud of her arched instep when first she had worn the new shoes, and had been anxious that Paul, who hitherto had seen her shod in the clumsy boots which she called her "workers," should learn that she possessed small feet and slim ankles. Now, perceiving his glance to be attracted to the burrowing operation, she flushed from brow to neck, convinced that he believed her to have worn the shoes for his particular admiration—which was true; and to have deliberately drawn his attention to them—which was untrue. She had been longing to hear Paul's voice again, and now that he stood before her she told herself that he must be comparing her with the hundreds of really pretty girls known to him, and thinking what an odd-looking, ignorant little fool she was. Gladly would Flamby have fled, but she lacked the courage to do so.

"So you were afraid," said Paul, smiling; "but not, on this occasion, of my late uncle, I hope?"

Flamby had half expected the question, but nevertheless it startled her. A Latin tag entered her mind immediately. "O," she began—and her strange shyness overwhelming her anew, said no more.

Paul assumed that he had misunderstood her. "Pardon me," he prompted, "but I'm afraid I failed to catch what you said."

"I said 'no,'" declared Flamby untruthfully, and silently blessed the dusk which veiled her flaming cheeks. Paul Mario abashed her. She delighted to be with him, and, with him, longed to run away. She had been conscious of her imperfections from the very moment that she had seen him in Bluebell Hollow, had hesitated to speak, doubting her command of English, had ceased to joy in her beauty, and had wondered if she appeared to Paul as a weird little gnome. Now, she was resolved never to see him again—to hide away from him, to forget him—or to try.

"You are a true artist, Flamby," he said; "a creature of moods. Perhaps to-night the fairy gates have opened for you as they have opened for me. Titania has summoned you out into the woods, and you are half afraid. But the artist lives very near to Nature, and has nothing to fear from her. Surely you love these nights of the early moon?"

And as he spoke Flamby's resolution became as naught, and she knew that to hear him and to share his dreams was worth any sacrifice of self-esteem. Never since her father's death had she had a confidant to whom she might speak of her imaginings, from whom she might hope for sympathy and understanding. She forgot her shyness, forgot her new shoes.

"I have always loved the moon," she confessed. "Perhaps I thought of her as Isis once long ago."

Now it was Paul who hesitated and wondered, his respect for Flamby and for the complex personality who had tutored her growing apace.

"But in London they must hate the moon," she added, and the tone betokened one of her swift changes of mood.

"Yes," said Paul, raising his eyes, "the old goddess of the Nile seems to have transferred her allegiance to the Rhine." He glanced at the luminous disc of his watch. "I fear I am late. I shall call upon your mother to-morrow, if I may, and see if we can arrange something definite about your studies."

"Oh!" cried Flamby—"what time will you come?"

"May I come in the morning?"

"Of course."

"In the morning, then, about eleven o'clock. I must hurry, or Mr. Thessaly will be waiting. What do you think of your new and wonderful neighbour?"

"I have heard that he is a clever man and very rich; but I have never seen him."

"Never seen him? And Babylon Hall is only a few hundred yards away."

"I know. But I have never seen Mr. Thessaly."

"How very queer," said Paul. "Well, good night, Flamby."

He took off his soft grey hat and extended his hand. All Flamby's shyness descended upon her like the golden shower on Danae, and barely touching the outstretched hand she whispered, "Good night, Mr. Mario," turned and very resolutely walked away, never once looking back.

At the gate of the cottage she began to limp, and upon the instant of entering the sitting-room, where Mrs. Duveen, returned from her visit, was lighting a large brass table lamp, Flamby dropped cross-legged upon the floor and tenderly removed her left shoe. Having got it free of her foot, she hurled it violently into the kitchen.

"Hell!" she said, succinctly.

"Flamby!" cried her mother, in a tone of mild reproval. "How can you swear like that!"

Flamby began to remove her stocking. "You'd swear if you had a damn great nail sticking in your heel!" she retorted.

XIII

Paul arrived at Babylon Hall exactly eight minutes late for his appointment. In the wonderful dusk unknown to the tropics, when sun contests with moon, disputing the reign of night, he walked up the long avenue past the silent lodge, and was shown into a small room adjoining the entrance hall. Of the latter he derived no very definite impression, except that it was queerly furnished. Wherein this queerness was manifested he found himself unable to decide on subsequent reflection. But the ante-room was markedly Eastern, having Arabesque mosaics, rugs and low tables of the Orient, and being lighted by a brass mosque-lamp. The footman who had opened the door for him was a foreigner of some kind, apparently a Greek.

He wondered at his reception; for the servant merely bowed and departed, without relieving him of hat and coat. Indeterminate, he stood, vaguely conscious of misgiving and questioning the stillness of the great house. But almost immediately a young man entered whose face expressed the utmost concern. He was clean-shaven, except for those frustrated whiskers once sacred to stage butlers, but latterly adopted as the sigil of the New Bohemia. He had pleasing dark brown hair, and if nature had not determined otherwise, might have been counted a handsome brunette. His morning-dress was worthy of Vesta Tilley's tailor. Paul detected the secretary even before the new arrival proclaimed his office.

"You have missed Mr. Thessaly by less than three minutes," he said, glancing at his watch. "I am his secretary, and upon me devolves the very delicate task of explaining his departure. In the absence of a hostess—this is a bachelor establishment—the position is peculiarly unfortunate—"

"Pray say no more, Mr.——"

"My name is Caspar."

"I beg you to offer no apologies, Mr. Caspar. Believe me, I quite understand and sympathise. Mr. Thessaly has been called away at the last moment by affairs of urgent importance."

"Exactly. I am indebted to you, Mr. Mario. The news—of a distressing nature—only reached us over the telephone five minutes ago. A groom was despatched immediately to Hatton Towers, but he seems to have missed you."

"Nothing of a family nature, I trust."

"Not exactly, Mr. Mario; but a matter of such urgency that there was no time for hesitation. Mr. Thessaly is already upon his way to London. He will write you a full explanation, and for that purpose took writing materials in the car. His letter should reach you by the first post in the morning. You will readily understand that the hospitality of Babylon Hall——"

Paul interrupted him. "My dear Mr. Caspar, I could not think of intruding at a time of such distress and uncertainty. I can return to Hatton Towers in less than twenty minutes and the larder is quite capable of satisfying my modest requirements. Please say no more. Directly you are able to communicate with him express to Mr. Thessaly my sincere condolence."

"A car is at your service, Mr. Mario."

"I appreciate the kindness fully, but I should much prefer to walk. Please banish from your mind any idea that you have inconvenienced me. Good night, Mr. Caspar."

The several extraordinary features of the incident he did not come to consider until later, but as he walked contemplative along Babylon Lane he detected sounds of distant gunfire, distinct from the more remote rumbling which was the voice of the battle front. He stood still—listening. An air raid on London was in progress.

"Thank God that Yvonne is out of it," he said earnestly—"and may He be with every poor soul to-night who needs Him."

Jules Thessaly and Babylon Hall were banished from his mind, although the raid on London might very well prove to be the explanation of Thessaly's sudden departure. From the stricken area his imagination recoiled, and in spirit he stood in a quaintly rambling village street of Devon before a rose-smothered cottage, looking up to an open casement window. It was there that Yvonne was, perhaps already sleeping—Yvonne, his wife. And all the old fear visited him as he contemplated their happiness, their immunity from the horrors, the sacrifices of an anguished world. Why was he spared when others, seemingly more worthy, suffered? True, he had suffered in spirit, which is the keenest torture of all; but he had emerged to a greater happiness, to a reunion with Yvonne which had been like a second and sweeter honeymoon. It could only be that he was spared for a great purpose, that he might perform a giant task. He was permitted, untrammelled, to view the conflict, the sorrow and the agony of mankind from an Olympic height, serene and personally untouched, only in order that he might heal the wounds laid bare before him. "The world is waiting for you," Don had said. Paul silently prayed that the world might not wait in vain.

"Master of Destiny, inscrutable God, grant me light that I may see to perform the duty laid upon me. Use me, mould me, make of me an instrument. Millions have offered all and lost all. Guide my steps. If death lies upon the path I will not shrink, but suffer me to be of some little use to thy scarred and bleeding world. Amen."

The ominous gunfire had ceased when he retired to his room that night after a lonely dinner, and even the more distant booming to which he was growing accustomed was not audible. The lantern of the moon hung above such a serene countryside that thoughts of war were all but impossible, and Paul likened the heavens to the jewelled dome of some vast mosque wherein were gathered together all the clashing creeds of mankind, their differences forgotten in a universal love.

XIV

The summer days slipped by, each morning bringing a letter from Yvonne, each night a longing that it might be the last of their separation. But the affairs of the late Sir Jacques' estate were not easily dismissed, and Paul, eager with the ardent eagerness of a poet to set to work upon his task, yet found himself chained to Lower Charleswood. The place itself enchanted his imagination, and had his mind been free (and if Sir Jacques had never occupied Hatton Towers and impressed his individuality upon the house) Paul might have been content to stay—with Yvonne for a companion. But London called him urgently and inaction grew irksome.

Flamby Duveen he never tired of studying; she fascinated him like some rare palimpsest or Pythagorean problem. But Flamby was going to London as soon as arrangements could be made for her mother and herself to leave Dovelands Cottage. Mrs. Duveen had raised no objection to the proposed change; Mrs. Duveen had never raised an objection to anything throughout the whole of her docile career; and already Paul was weaving this oddly assorted pair into the scheme of that book which he projected as a challenge to the latent good in man.

Some of his neighbours he met, willy nilly, but they took no place in his mental record of things, save perhaps the place of punctuation marks, commas and semicolons for the most part, rarely rising to the definite degree of a full point and never approaching the dramatic significance of an exclamation mark. Already he floated above the common world, looking down upon its tortured contours and half-defaced frontiers—for the true poet is a fakir who quits his physical body at the beck of inspiration, to return laden with strange secrets.

Jules Thessaly's letter explaining his extraordinary breach of good behaviour had been characteristic of the man. For whilst it was couched in more or less conventional terms of apology, the writer obviously regarded his action as justified and assumed in Paul an understanding which rendered pique impossible. Paul's theory regarding Thessaly's sudden departure had been correct.

"The gods are all dead," ran one passage in the letter. "A shell, one of our own, fortunately imperfect, entered the upper storey of my house and rudely forced a passage through one floor and the outer wall. Some slight damage has been done to my collection"—etc.

* * * * *

The tangled details of Paul's legacy became disentangled at last, and he fixed a definite date for his departure. That same evening the weather broke and grey clouds veiled the stars. He was keenly susceptible to climatic changes, and this abrupt interruption of summer plunged him into a dark mood. Gone were the fairies from the meadows, gone the dryads from the woods. The birds grew mute and roses drooped their heads. He found himself alone facing a sorrowful world and sharing its sorrows. The shadow of the black hat in the dining-room portrait lay darkly on Hatton Towers.

When such a mood was upon him he would resign himself to it with all that spiritual and intellectual abandon of which he was capable, savagely goading himself to blacker despair and contemplating his own condition with the critical faculty of his mind, which at these times remained undisturbed. Whilst the rain beat upon the windows and draperies billowed eerily in the draught, he passed from the library into the study and unlocked that high black oak bureau which concealed the private collection of works artistic and literary which had informed him of the true character of his late uncle. He had caused a huge fire to be made up in the old open hearth in the dining-room and he proposed to spend the evening in building a pyre which should consume the memory of the secret Sir Jacques.

The books, many of them in handsome bindings, he glanced at, in order that no one worthy of life should be destroyed. The verdict pronounced he either laid the book aside or broke it up and threw it on to the great fire in the adjoining room. He worked for an hour, eagerly, savagely, his coat stripped off and his shirt sleeves rolled above the elbow. The collection, though valuable, was small, and within the hour the bulk of it was ashes. Paul the iconoclast then turned his attention to the portfolios of water-colours, etchings and photographs which occupied the lower and deeper shelves of the bureau.

Here he found exquisite reproductions of Pompeiian frescoes, illustrations in line and colour to divers works, as Pierre Louys' Aphrodite, the Satyricon of Petronius, and Ovid's Amours. The crowning horror of the thing was the artistic skill which had been prostituted to such ends. Technically, many of the pictures were above criticism; morally all were beyond. He consigned the entire heap of them to the flames.

Only the photographs remained, and a glance at the first of these resulted in a journey to the dining-room with laden arms. By impish chance two large and tastefully mounted panels both representing a sun-kissed nymph posed beside a pool slipped from the bundle and fell at his feet. Kicking the ash-stifled fire into a blaze, he stooped to recover them. So stooping he remained, staring down at the pictures on the floor. Then slowly, dazedly, he took them up, one in either hand. They were photographs of Flamby.

* * * * *

The fire roared up the brick chimney, the wind fought for entrance from above, rain beat dismally upon the high windows. The fire died down again, seeming to retire into the mound of grey ashes which it had created; and the photographs fell from Paul's grasp.

A wrought-iron poker hung from a rack in the hearth, and, his face set like a mask, Paul took the crude weapon in his hand, and slowly raised his head until he was looking up at the oil-painting above the mantelpiece. The sound of a dry and discreet cough close behind him drew his attention to the presence of Davison. He turned, a strange figure, something very menacing in his eyes. Davison glanced furtively under the gate-legged table.

"Mr. Thessaly has called, sir," he said, and held out a salver upon which lay a visiting-card.

"Where is he?"

"He is in the library, sir."

"Very good. I will join him there in a few moments."

The portrait of Sir Jacques had been spared to posterity by that admirable tradition which denies an English gentleman any display of emotion in the presence of a servant.

XV

"I have seized the first opportunity," said Thessaly, as Paul, composure restored, entered the library, "of offering a personal explanation of my behaviour."

Paul took his extended hand, waiving the proferred explanation. "Except as regards the damage done to your property, I am not interested. Had your disappearance been dictated by nothing more than a sudden desire for solitude I should have understood. If I should ever be called upon to act as you did on that occasion I should know that a friend would understand. If he misunderstood he would not be a friend. I fear I am somewhat dusty. I have been destroying a portion of my legacy."

Jules Thessaly, dropping back into the padded arm-chair in which he had been seated, stared hard at Paul.

"Not the illustrations to that portion of Scheherazade's narrative invariably expunged from all respectable editions of the Thousand and One Nights?"

Paul nodded, pushing a box of cigars across the table. "You know them?"

"I know that Sir Jacques possessed such pictures."

"I have destroyed them."

"Why?"

Paul selected a cigar ere looking up to meet the faintly amused glance of Thessaly. "They bore witness to a phase of his life which he chose to conceal from the world. I could do no less."

"You speak with contempt."

"The hypocrite is contemptible. A frank libertine may be an amusing fellow. If we do not think so, we can avoid him."

"I agree with you up to a point. But in justice remember that every man has pages in his history which are never displayed to the world."

"Very likely. But every man does not pose as a saint. Those who seek the company of a professed rake do so at their own peril. But the disguised satyr is a menace to the innocent."

"I would suggest that some specific 'innocent' occurs to your mind?"

"The adder does not bite itself. Were there no stories?"

"A few. But Sir Jacques was a model of discretion; as an under-secretary he would have glittered in the political firmament. There was a pretty village girl who promised at one time to provide the district with agreeable table-talk, but unfortunately for Miss Kingsbury and company the affair apparently fell through."

"He was, as you say, a model of discretion."

"Ah. There are records? Well, you were justified in destroying them."

"It is hard to understand."

"To understand whom—Sir Jacques or the girl? You cannot mean the girl. A man who reaches the age of thirty without understanding women is like a bluebottle who devotes a summer morning to an endeavour to fly through a pane of glass."

"You speak like an early Roman."

"What more admirable model? Consider the Roman institutions; perfect sanitation and slavery. We abolish one and adopt the other, with the result that a healthy democracy has swallowed us up. The early Romans were sages."

"You have no sympathy for Sir Jacques' victims?"

"Except where the chivalrous warriors of Prussia are concerned, and with other rare exceptions, I never think of women as victims, Mr. Mario."

"Not even in the case of an aged hypocrite who probably posed as the Platonic friend?"

"Platonic friendship is impossible up to sixty-five. The most ignorant girl knows it to be so, for every woman has hereditary memory."

"Your creed is a harsh one. You take no count of snares and pitfalls."

"Snares and pitfalls cannot be set upon the highroad."

"And how should you define this highroad?"

"As the path selected by our unspoiled instincts. It is ignorance posing as education that first blunts those instincts, dogma disguised as religion and hypocrisy misnamed 'good behaviour.'"

"You would allow instinct to go unfettered?"

"Provided it remains unspoiled. But first I would sweep the world of lies."

"Then you think the world ready for the truth?"

"I know that the world waits for it."

"Do you think the world will recognise it?"

"In part the world has already recognised it. We lived in an age which was eternally demanding 'proofs'—and which rejected them when they were offered. But the great catastrophe which has overwhelmed us has adjusted our perspective. Few of us to-day dare to doubt the immortality of the soul. We failed to recognise joy as a proof of our survival after death, but we cannot reject the teaching of sorrow."

"Love and friendship, of course, are proofs not only of immortality, but of pre-existence and the survival of the individual."

"And can you make the disciples of the clap-trap which passes for religion believe this, Mr. Mario?"

"I propose to try. But the task is hard. There are pieces difficult to fit into the scheme."

"You agree with me that the war, which was born of ignorance, will bear the fruit of truth?"

"I agree that it will bear the fruit of truth, but I do not agree that it was born of ignorance. Men did not cause the war. It is a visitation from higher powers, and therefore has a grand purpose. There are no accidents in the scheme of the universe."

"You think those higher powers are powers of good?"

"Wherever the powers of darkness walk the Powers of Light stand arrayed before them."

There was a muffled crash in the adjoining room, which brought Paul, startled, to his feet. He crossed the library and entered the panelled dining-room. The portrait of Sir Jacques had fallen from its place above the mantelpiece, breaking a number of ornaments as it fell. Davison was already on the spot and stood surveying the wreckage.

"The 'eat of the extraordinary fire, no doubt, sir," he said. "The 'ook is loosened, as you observe."

Paul stared at the man with unseeing eyes; he was striving to grasp the symbolic significance of the incident, but it eluded him, and presently he returned to the library, where Jules Thessaly was glancing at a book which he had taken from a shelf apparently at random.

"An accident?"

"Yes. A picture has fallen. Nothing serious."

"Ah. Do you know this war-writer?" Thessaly held up the book in his hand—"Rudolf Kjellen."

"By name," replied Paul, absently. "Does he understand?"

"Up to a point. His thesis is that a great and inevitable world-drama is being played and that he who seeks its cause in mere human plotting and diplomacy is a fool. States are superhuman but living biological personalities, dynamic, and moving toward inevitable ends beyond human control."

"He is mad. All the German propagandists are mad. The insanity of Germany is part of the scheme of the world-change through which we are passing. He recognises the superhuman forces at work and in the same breath babbles of 'states.' There is only one earthly State and to that State all humanity belongs."

Jules Thessaly returned Kjellen's work to its place. "If I do not misunderstand you," he said, fixing his gaze upon Paul, "you contemplate telling the world that the churches have misinterpreted Revelation and that Christ as well as the other Masters actually revealed reincarnation as the secret of heaven and hell?"

"That is my intention."

"Your audience is a vast one, Mr. Mario. No man for many generations has been granted the power to sway thought, which nature has bestowed upon you. Your word may well prevail against all things—even in time against Rome. You recognise that you are about to take up a mighty weapon?"

"I do. Publicity is the lever of which Archimedes dreamed; and I confess that I tremble. You think the churches will oppose me?"

"Can you doubt it?"

"I fear you are right, yet they should be my allies, not my enemies. In the spectacle of a world in arms the churches must surely recognise the evidence of failure. If they would survive they must open their doors to reform."

"And what is the nature of the reform you would suggest?"

"Conversion from nineteen centuries of error to the simple creed of their Founder."

"Impossible. Churches, like Russian securities, may be destroyed but never converted."

"Yet in their secret hearts millions of professed churchmen believe as I believe——"

"——That heaven and hell are within every man's own soul and that the state in which he is born is the state for which he has fitted himself by the acts of his pre-existence?"

Paul inclined his head. "No other belief is possible to-day."

"There are higher planets than Earth, perhaps lower. The ultimate deep is Hell, the ultimate height Heaven. The universe is a ladder which every soul must climb."

From a catechism Jules Thessaly's words had developed into a profession of faith, and Paul, who stood watching the speaker, grew suddenly aware—a phenomenon which all have experienced—that such a profession had been made to him before, that he had stood thus on some other occasion and had heard the same words spoken. He knew what Jules Thessaly was about to say.

"The knowledge which is yours is innate knowledge beyond human power to acquire in one short span of life; it is the result of many lives devoted to study. For the task you are about to take up you have been preparing since the world was young. All is ordained, even your presence in this room to-night—and mine. Where last did we meet—where first? Perhaps in Rome, perhaps Atlantis; but assuredly we met and we meet again to fulfil a compact made in the dawn of time. I, too, am a student of the recondite, and it may be that some of the fragments of truth which I have collected will help you to force recognition of the light from a world plunged in darkness."

"In utter darkness," murmured Paul. And clearly before him—so clearly as almost to constitute hallucination—-arose a vision of Flamby Duveen as she appeared in the secret photographs.

"You have definitely set your hand to the plough?"

"Definitely."

Jules Thessaly advanced, leaning forward across the table. He stared fixedly at Paul. "To-night," he said, "a new Star is born in the West and an hour will come when the eyes of all men must be raised to it."



PART SECOND

FLAMBY IN LONDON

I

On a raw winter's morning some six months later Don Courtier walked briskly out of St. Pancras station, valise in hand, and surveyed a misty yellow London with friendly eyes. A taxi-driver, hitherto plunged in unfathomable gloom, met this genial glance and recovered courage. He volunteered almost cheerfully to drive Don to any spot which he might desire to visit, an offer which Don accepted in an equally cordial spirit.

Depositing his valise at the Services Club in Stratford Place, his modest abode when on leave in London, Don directed the cabman to drive him to Paul Mario's house in Chelsea.

"Go a long way round," he said; "through Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square and up the Mall. I want to see the sights of London Town."

Lying back in the cab he lighted a cigarette and resigned himself to those pleasant reflections which belong to the holiday mood. For the Capital of a threatened empire, London looked disappointingly ordinary, he thought. There seemed to be thousands of pretty women, exquisitely dressed, thronging the West End thoroughfares; but Don had learned from experience that this delusion was a symptom associated with leave. Long absence from feminine society blunts a man's critical faculties, and Robinson Crusoe must have thought all women beautiful.

There were not so many posters on the hoardings, which deprived the streets of a characteristic note of colour, but there were conspicuous encomiums of economy displayed at Oxford Circus which the shopping crowds along Oxford Street and Regent Street seemed nevertheless to have overlooked. A large majority of the male population appeared to be in khaki. The negligible minority not in khaki appeared to be in extremis or second childhood. Don had heard much of "slackers" but the spectacle afforded by the street of shops set him wondering where they were all hiding. With the exception of a number of octogenarians and cripples, the men in Regent Street wore uniform. They were all accompanied by lovely women; it was extraordinary, but Don knew that it would wear off. At Piccadilly Circus he found the usual congestion of traffic and more than the usual gala atmosphere for which this spot is peculiar.

People at Piccadilly Circus never appear to be there on business. They are either au rendezvous or bound for a restaurant or going shopping or booking theatre seats; and although Don had every reason for believing that a war was in progress, Piccadilly Circus brazenly refused to care. The doors of the London Pavilion were opened hospitably and even at that early hour the tables in Scott's windows were occupied by lobster fanciers. A newsboy armed with copies of an evening paper (which oddly enough came out in the morning) was shouting at the top of his voice that there had been a naval engagement in the Channel, but he did not succeed in attracting anything like the same attention as that freely bestowed upon a well known actress who was standing outside the Criterion and not shouting at all. It was very restful after the worry at the front. In Derbyshire, too, people had talked about nothing but the war.

There were attractive posters upon the plinth of Nelson's Monument, and the Square seemed to be full of Colonial troops. The reputation of Trafalgar Square ranks next to that of the Strand in the British Colonies. A party of Grenadier Guards, led by a band and accompanied by policemen and small boys, marched along the Mall. A phrase of the march haunted Don all the way to Chelsea.

* * * * *

Yvonne Mario in white decollete blouse and simple blue skirt, made a very charming picture indeed. Her beauty was that of exquisite colouring and freshness; her hair seemed to have captured and retained the summer sunlight, and her eyes were of that violet hue which so rarely survives childhood. Patrician languor revealed itself in every movement of her slim figure. Don's smile betrayed his admiration.

"Do you know, Yvonne," he said, "I have been thinking coming along that there were thousands of pretty girls in London. I see now that I was wrong."

"You are making me blush!" said Yvonne, which was not true, for her graceful composure seldom deserted her. "I shall tell Paul that you have been paying me compliments."

"I wish you would. I don't believe he thinks I appreciate you as highly as I do."

"He does," replied Yvonne naively; "he regards you as a connoisseur of good looks!"

"Oh!" cried Don. "Oh! listen to her! Yvonne, you are growing vain."

"A woman without vanity is not appreciated."

"A woman without vanity is not human."

"If you are going to say cynical things I won't talk to you. You want a whisky-and-soda."

"I don't."

"You do. The first thing to offer a man on leave is whisky-and-soda."

"It is a ritual, then?"

"It is the law. Sit down there and resign yourself to it. Do you really mean to tell me that you did not know Paul was in France?"

"It must be a dreadful blow to your self-esteem, Yvonne, but I really came here expecting to see him. When does he return?"

Yvonne rose as a maid entered with a tray bearing decanter and syphon. "On Tuesday morning if the Channel is clear. Will you help yourself or shall I pour out until you say 'When'?"

"Please help me. You cannot imagine how delightful it is to be waited upon by a nice girl after grubbing over there."

"When do you have to go back, Don?"

"I have a clear week yet. When! How is Paul progressing with the book, Yvonne?"

"He has been collecting material for months, and of course his present visit to France is for material, too. I think he has practically completed the first part, but I have no idea what form it is finally to take."

"His article in the Review made a stir."

"Wasn't it extraordinary!" cried Yvonne, seating herself beside Don on the low window-seat and pressing the cushions with her hands. "We were simply snowed under with letters from all sorts of people, and quite a number of them called in person, even after Paul had left London."

"Did you let them in?"

"No; some of them quite frightened me. There was one old clergyman who seemed very suspicious when Eustace told him that Paul was abroad. He stood outside the house for quite a long time, banging his stick on the pavement and coughing in a nasty barking fashion. I was watching him through the curtains of an upstairs window. He left a tract behind called The Path is Straight but Narrow."

"Did he wear whiskers?"

"Yes; long ones."

"A soft black hat, a polo collar and a ready-for-use black tie?"

"I believe he did."

"I am glad you did not let him in."

Through the narrow-panelled windows of the charming morning-room Don could see the old sundial. He remembered that in the summer the miniature rock-garden endued a mantle of simple flowers, and that sweet scents were borne into the room by every passing breeze. A great Victorian painter had lived in this house, which now was destined to figure again in history as the home of the greater Paul Mario. He glanced around the cosy room, in which there were many bowls and vases holding tulips, those chalices of tears beloved of Hafiz, and he suppressed a little sigh.

"May I light a pipe before I go, Yvonne?" he asked. "I am one of those depraved beings who promenade the streets smoking huge briars, to the delight of Continental comic artists."

"I know you are. But you are not going to promenade the streets until you have had lunch."

"Really, Yvonne, thanks all the same, but I must go. Honestly, I have an appointment."

Yvonne smiled in his face and her violet eyes held a query.

"No," replied Don—"no such luck. The Pauls are the lucky dogs. All the nice girls are married. I am going to lunch with a solicitor!"

"Oh, how unromantic! And you are on leave!"

"Painful, I admit, but I am a stodgy old fogey. When the war is over I am going to buy a velvet coat and a little red pork-pie cap, with a green tassel. Is that old Odin I can hear barking?"

"Yes. He has heard your voice."

"I must really say 'How d'you do' to Odin. When I have lighted my pipe may I go out?"

"Of course. Odin would never forgive you if you didn't. Let me strike a match for you."

"You are spoiling me, Yvonne."

Don, his pipe well alight, stood up and went out into the garden where a wolf-hound was making an excited demonstration in the little yard before the door of his kennel.

"Hullo, Odin!" cried Don, as the great hound leapt at him joyfully, resting both paws upon his shoulders. "How is old Odin? Not looking forward to compulsory rationing, I dare swear."

He pulled the dog's ears affectionately and scratched his shapely head in that manner which is so gratifying to the canine species. Then from the pocket of his "British-warm" he produced a large sweet biscuit, whereupon Odin immediately assumed a correct mendicant posture and sat with drooping forepaws and upraised eyes. Don balanced the big biscuit upon the dog's nose. "When I say 'Three,' Odin. One!" Odin did not stir. "Two!" Odin remained still as a dog of stone. "Three!" The biscuit disappeared, and Don laughed as loudly as though the familiar performance had been an entire novelty. "Good morning, old fellow," he said, and returned to the house.

Yvonne was awaiting him in the hall. "What time shall you come on Tuesday?" she asked. "Paul should be home to lunch."

"You will want Paul all to yourself for awhile, Yvonne. I shall look in later in the afternoon." He shook hands with his pretty hostess, put on his cap and set off for the offices of Messrs. Nevin & Nevin.

* * * * *

The offices of Messrs. Nevin & Nevin were of that dusty, gloomy and obsolete fashion which inspires such confidence in the would-be litigant. Large and raggedly bound volumes, which apparently had been acquired from the twopenny boxes outside second-hand bookshops, lined the shelves of the outer office, and the chairs were of an early-Victorian horsehair variety. Respectability had run to seed in those chambers. Mr. Jacob Nevin, the senior partner, to whose decorous sanctum Don presently penetrated, also had a second-hand appearance. Don had always suspected him of secret snuff-taking.

"Ah, Captain Courtier," he said; "very sad about Miss Duveen's second bereavement, very sad."

"Yes. Fate has dealt unkindly with the poor girl. I understand that Mrs. Duveen died more than two months ago; but I only learned of her death quite recently. I wrote to Miss Duveen directly I knew that I was coming to England, and I was horrified to hear of her mother's death. You have got the affairs well in hand now?"

"Since receiving your instructions, Captain Courtier, I have pushed the matter on with every possible expedition—every expedition possible. The absence of Mr. Paul Mario in France had somewhat tied my hands, you see."

"I will consult Mrs. Chumley, my aunt, and arrange, if possible, for Miss Duveen to live at The Hostel. I have already written to her upon the subject. If it can be managed I shall 'phone you later to-day, and perhaps you would be good enough to wire to Miss Duveen requesting her to come to London immediately. Don't mention my name, you understand? But let me know at the Club by what train she is arriving and I shall endeavour to meet her. We cannot expect Mario to attend to these details; he has a duty to the world, which only a man of his genius could perform."

Mr. Nevin adjusted his pince-nez. "Very remarkable, Captain Courtier," he said gravely; "a very strange and strong personality—Mr. Paul Mario. As my client his wishes are mine, but as a staunch churchman I find myself in disagreement with much of his paper, Le Bateleur—in disagreement, but remarkable, very."

Don laughed. "You are not alone in this respect, Mr. Nevin. He is destined to divide the civilised world into two camps, and already I, who encouraged him to the task, begin to tremble for its outcome."

II

Flamby arrived at London Bridge Station in a profoundly dejected condition. However happy one may be, London Bridge Station possesses the qualities of a sovereign joy-killer, and would have inclined the thoughts of Mark Tapley toward the darker things of life; but to Flamby, alone in a world which she did not expect to find sympathetic, it seemed a particularly hopeless place. She was dressed in black, and black did not suit her, and all the wisdom of your old philosophers must fail to solace a woman who knows that she is not looking her best.

Her worldly belongings were contained in a split-cane grip and the wraith of a cabin-trunk, whose substance had belonged to her father; her available capital was stuffed in a small leather purse. When the train with a final weary snort ceased its struggles and rested beside the platform, that murk so characteristic of London draped the grimy structure of the station, and a fine drizzle was falling. London had endued no holiday garments to greet Flamby, but, homely fashion, had elected to receive her in its everyday winter guise. A pathetic little figure, she stepped out of the carriage. Something in the contrast between this joyless gloom and the sun-gay hills she had known and loved brought a sudden mist before Flamby's eyes, so that she remained unaware of the presence of a certain genial officer until a voice which was vaguely familiar said: "Your train was late, Miss Duveen."

Flamby started, stared, and found Donald Courtier standing smiling at her. Although she had seen him only once before she knew him immediately because she had often studied the photograph which was inside the famous silver cigarette-case. The mistiness of vision troubled her anew as she held out her black-gloved hand. "Oh," she said huskily, "how good of you."

The last word was almost inaudible, and whilst Don grasped her hand between both his own and pressed it reassuringly, Flamby stared through the mist at three golden stars on the left shoulder of his topcoat.

"Now," cried Don cheerily, "what about our baggage?"

"There's only one old trunk," said Flamby, "except this funny thing."

"Give me the funny thing," replied Don briskly, "and here is a comic porter who will dig out the trunk. Porter!"

Linking his left arm in Flamby's right, Don, taking up the cane grip, moved along the platform in the direction of the guard's van, which was apparently laden with an incredible number of empty and resonant milk cans. The porter whom he had hailed, a morbid spirit who might suitably have posed for Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, approached regretfully.

"'Ow many?" he inquired. "Got the ticket?"

He did not disguise his hopes that it might prove to be lost, but they were shattered when the luggage ticket was produced from Flamby's black glove, and in due course the antique cabin-trunk made its appearance. That it was an authentic relic of Duveen's earlier days was testified by the faded labels, which still clung to it and which presented an illustrated itinerary of travels extending from Paris to New Orleans, Moscow to Shanghai. The new label, "London Bridge," offered a shocking anti-climax. Trundled by the regretful porter the grip and the trunk were borne out into the drizzle, Don and Flamby following; a taxi-cab was found, and Don gave the address of The Hostel. Then, allowing Flamby no time for comment, he began talking at once about the place for which they were bound.

"Mr. Nevin selected The Hostel as an ideal spot," he said, "where you would be free from interference and able to live your own life. He was influenced, too, by the fact that I have an aunt living there, a Mrs. Chumley, one of the most delightful old souls you could wish to meet."

Flamby was watching him all the time, and presently she spoke. "Are you quite sure, Captain Courtier, that the money from the War Office will be enough to pay for all this?"

Don waved his hand carelessly. "Ample," he declared. "The idea of The Hostel, which was founded by Lady Something-or-other, is to afford a residence for folks placed just as you are; not overburdened with means—you see? Of course, some of the tenants are queer fish, and as respectable as those dear old ladies who live amongst the ghosts at Hampton Court. But there are a number of women writers and students, and so forth: you will be quite at home in no time."

Flamby glanced down at the black dress, which she had made, and had made tastefully and well, but which to its critical creator looked painfully unfinished. "I feel a freak," she said. "Dad didn't believe in mourning, but they would have burned me alive at Lower Charleswood if I hadn't gone into black. Do you believe in mourning?"

"Well," replied Don, "to me it seems essentially a concession to popular opinion. I must admit that it strikes me as an advertisement of grief and about on a par with the wailing of the East. I don't see why we should go about inviting the world to weep. Our sorrows are our own affairs, after all, like our joys. We might quite as reasonably dress in white when a son and heir is born to us."

"Oh, I'm so glad you think so," said Flamby, and her voice was rather tremulous. "I loved mother more than anything in the world, but I hate to be reminded that she is dead by everybody who looks at me."

Don grasped her hand and tucked it confidently under his arm. "Your father was a wise man. Never be ashamed of following his advice, Flamby. May I call you Flamby? You seem so very grown-up, with your hair all tucked away under that black hat."

"I'm nearly eighteen, but I should hate you to call me Miss Duveen. Nobody ever calls me Miss Duveen, except people who don't like me."

"They must be very few."

"Not so few," said Flamby thoughtfully. "I think it's my hair that does it."

"That makes people dislike you?"

"Yes. Other women hate my hair."

"That is a compliment, Flamby."

"But isn't it horrible? Women are nasty. I wish I were a man."

Don laughed loudly, squeezing Flamby's hand more firmly under his arm. "You would have made a deuce of a boy," he said. "I wonder if we should have been friends."

"I don't think so," replied Flamby pensively.

"Eh!" cried Don, turning to her—"why not?"

"Well you treat women so kindly, and if I were a man I should treat them so differently."

"How do you know that I treat women kindly?"

"You are very kind to me."

"Ha!" laughed Don. "You call yourself a woman? Why you are only a kid!"

"But I'm a wise kid," replied Flamby saucily, the old elfin light in her eyes. "I know what beasts women are to one another, and I often hate myself because I'm a little beast, too."

"I don't believe it."

"That's because you are one of those nice men who deserve to know better."

Don leaned back in the cab and laughed until tears came to his eyes. He had encouraged this conversation with the purpose of diverting Flamby's mind from her sorrow, and he was glad to have succeeded so well. "Do men hate you, too," he asked.

"No, I get on much better with men. There are some fearful rotters, of course, but most men are honest enough if you are honest with them."

"Honi soit qui mal y pense," murmured Don, slowly recovering from his fit of laughter.

"Ipsissima verba," said Flamby.

Don, who was drying his eyes, turned slowly and regarded her. Flamby blushed rosily.

"What did you say?" asked Don.

"Nothing. I was thinking out loud."

"Do you habitually think in Latin?"

"No. It was just a trick of dad's. I wish you could have heard him swear in Latin."

Don's eyes began to sparkle again. "No doubt I should have found the experience of great educational value," he said; "but did he often swear in Latin?"

"Not often; only when he was very drunk."

"What was his favourite tongue when he was merely moderately so?"

Flamby's expression underwent a faint change, and looking down she bit her under-lip. Instantly Don saw that he had wounded her, and he cursed the clumsiness, of which Paul could never have been guilty, that had led him to touch this girl's acute sensibilities. She was bewildering, of course, and he realised that he must step warily in future. He reached across and grasped her other hand hard. "Please forgive me," he said. "No man had better reason for loving your father than I."

Flamby looked up at him doubtfully, read sincerity in the grey eyes, and smiled again at once. "He wouldn't have minded a bit," she explained, "but I'm only a woman after all, and women are daft."

"I cannot allow you to be a woman yet, Flamby. You are only a girl, and I want you to think of me——"

Flamby's pretty lips assumed a mischievous curve and a tiny dimple appeared in her cheek. "Don't say as a big brother," she cried, "or you will make me feel like a penny novelette!"

"I cannot believe that you ever read a penny novelette."

"No; I didn't. But mother read them, and dad used to tear pages out to light his pipe before mother had finished. Then she would explain the plot to me up to the torn pages, and we would try to work out what had happened to the girl in the missing parts."

"A delightful literary exercise. And was the principal character always a girl?"

"Always a girl—yes; a poor girl cast upon the world; very often a poor governess."

"And she had two suitors."

"Yes. Sometimes three. She seemed inclined to marry the wrong one, but mother always read the end first to make sure it came out all right. I never knew one that didn't."

"No; it would have been too daring for publication. So your mother read these stories? Romance is indeed a hardy shrub."

The cab drew up before the door of The Hostel, a low, half-timbered building upon Jacobean lines which closely resembled an old coaching inn. The windows looking out upon the flower-bordered lawn had leaded panes, the gabled roof was red-tiled, and over the arched entrance admitting one to the rectangular courtyard around which The Hostel was constructed hung a wrought-iron lamp of delightfully mediaeval appearance.

Don opened the gate and walked beside Flamby under the arch and into the courtyard. Here the resemblance to an inn grew even more marked. A gallery surrounded the courtyard and upon it opened the doors of numerous suites situated upon the upper floor. There was a tiny rock garden, too, and altogether the place had a charming old-world atmosphere that was attractive and homely. The brasswork of the many doors was brightly polished and all the visible appointments of the miniature suites spoke of refined good taste.

"It's very quiet," said Flamby.

"Yes. You see most of the people who live here are out during the day."

"Please where do I live?"

"This way," cried Don cheerily, conducting her up the tiled steps to the gallery. "Number twenty-three."

His good cheer was infectious, and Flamby found herself to be succumbing to a sort of pleasant excitement as she passed along by the rows of well-groomed doors, each of which bore a number and a neat name-plate. Some of the quaint leaded lattices were open, revealing vases of flowers upon the ledges within, and the tiny casement curtains afforded an index to the characters of the various occupants, which made quite fascinating study. There was Mrs. Lawrence Pooney whose curtains were wedgwood blue with a cream border; Miss Hook, whose curtains were plain dark green; Miss Aldrington Beech, whose curtains were lemon coloured with a Chinese pattern; and Mrs. Marion de Lisle, whose curtains were of the hue of the passion flower.

The door of Number 23 proved to be open, and Flamby, passing in, stood looking around her and trying to realise that this was the stage upon which the next act of her life story should be played. She found herself in a rather small rectangular room, lighted by one large casement window and a smaller latticed one, both of them overlooking the courtyard. The woodwork was oaken and the walls were distempered a discreet and restful shade of blue. There were a central electric fitting and another for a reading-lamp, a fireplace of the latest slow-combustion pattern and a door communicating with an inner chamber.

"Oh!" cried Flamby. "What a dear little place!"

Don, who had been watching her anxiously, saw that she was really delighted and he entered into the spirit of the thing immediately. "I think it is simply terrific," he said. "I have often envied the Aunt her abode and wished I were an eligible spinster or widow. You have not seen the inner sanctuary yet; it is delightfully like a state-room."

Flamby passed through the doorway into the bedroom, which indeed was not much larger than a steamer cabin and was fitted with all those space-saving devices which one finds at sea; a bureau that was really a wash-basin, and a hidden wardrobe.

"There is a communal kitchen," explained Don, "with up-to-date appointments, also a general laundry, and there are bathrooms on both floors. I don't mean perpendicular bathrooms, so I should perhaps have said on either floor. In that cunning little alcove in the sitting-room is a small gas-stove, so that you will have no occasion to visit the kitchen unless you are preparing a banquet. You enjoy the use of the telephone, which is in the reading-room over the main entrance—and what more could one desire?"

"It's just great," declared Flamby, "and I can never hope to thank you for being so good to me. But I am wondering how I am going to afford it."

"My dear Flamby, the rent of this retreat is astoundingly modest. You will use very little coal, electric and gas meters are of the penny-in-the-slot variety immortalised in song and story by Little Tich, and there you are."

"I was thinking about the furniture," said Flamby.

"Eh!" cried Don—"furniture? Yes, of course; upon more mature consideration I perceive distinctly that some few items of that kind will be indispensable. Furniture. Quite so."

"You hadn't thought of that?"

"No—I admit it had slipped my memory. The question of furniture does not bulk largely in the mind of one used to billeting troops, but of course it must be attended to. Now, how about the furniture of What's-the-name Cottage?"

Flamby shook her head. "We had hardly any. Dad used to make things out of orange boxes; he was very clever at it. He didn't like real furniture. As fast as poor mother saved up and bought some he broke it, so after a while she stopped. I've brought the clock."

"Ah!" cried Don gaily—"the clock. Good. That's a start. You will at least know at what time to rise in the morning."

"I shall," agreed Flamby—"from the floor!"

The fascinating dimple reappeared in her cheek and she burst into peals of most musical laughter. Don laughed, too; so that presently they became quite breathless but perfectly happy.

III

"I vote," said Don, "that we consult the Aunt. She resides at Number Nineteen on this floor, and her guidance in such a matter as furnishing would be experienced and reliable."

"Right-oh," replied Flamby buoyantly. "I have a little money saved up."

"Don't worry about money. The pension has been finally settled between Mr. Nevin and the Government people, and it dates from the time——"

"Of dad's death? But mother used to draw that."

"I am speaking of the special pension," explained Don hurriedly, as they walked along the gallery, "which Mr. Nevin has been trying to arrange. This ante-dates, and the first sum will be quite a substantial one; ample for the purpose of furnishing. Here is the Aunt's."

Pausing before a door numbered 19, and bearing a brass plate inscribed "Mrs. Chumley," Don pressed the bell. Whilst they waited, Flamby studied the Aunt's curtains (which were snowy white) with critical eyes and tried to make up her mind whether she liked or disliked the sound of "Mrs. Chumley."

"The Aunt is apparently not at home," said Don, as no one responded to the ringing. "Let us return to Number 23 and summon Reuben, who will possibly know where she has gone."

Accordingly they returned to the empty suite and rang a bell which summoned the janitor. Following a brief interval came a sound resembling that of a drinking horse and there entered a red-whiskered old man with a neatly pimpled nose, introducing an odour of rum. He was a small man, but he wore a large green apron, and he touched the brim of his bowler hat very respectfully.

"Excuse me breathin' 'eavy, sir," he said, "but it's the hahsma. The place is hall ready for the young madam, sir, to move 'er furniture in, and Mrs. Chumley she's in the readin'-room."

"Ah, very good, Reuben," replied Don. "Will you get the trunk and basket in from the taxi, and you might pay the man. The fare was four and something-or-other. Here are two half-crowns and sixpence."

"Yes, sir," responded Reuben; "and what time am I to expect the other things?"

"Miss Duveen is not quite sure, Reuben, when they will arrive. As a matter of fact, she has several purchases to make. But probably the bulk of it will arrive to-morrow afternoon."

"Yes, sir," said Reuben, and departed respiring noisily. As he made his exit Flamby carefully closed the door, and—"Oh," she cried, "what a funny old man! Whatever did he mean by hahsma?"

"I have been struggling with the same problem," declared Don, "and I have come to the conclusion that he referred to asthma."

"Oh," said Flamby breathlessly. "I hope he won't mind me laughing at him."

"I am sure he won't. He is a genial soul and generally liked in spite of his spirituous aroma. Now for the Aunt."

They walked around two angles of the gallery and entered a large room the windows of which overlooked the front lawn. It was furnished cosily as a library, and a cheerful fire burned in the big open grate. From the centre window an excellent view might be obtained of Reuben struggling with the cabin-trunk, which the placid taxi-driver had unstrapped and lowered on to the janitor's shoulders without vacating his seat.

"I hope he won't break the clock," said Flamby, sotto voce. She turned as Don went up to a little table at which a round old lady, the only occupant of the room, was seated writing. This old lady had a very round red face and very round wide-open surprised blue eyes. Her figure was round, too; she was quite remarkably circular.

"Ha, the Aunt!" cried Don, placing his hands affectionately upon her plump shoulders. "Here is our country squirrel come to town."

Mrs. Chumley laid down her pen and turned the surprised eyes upon Don. Being met with a smile, she smiled in response—and her smile was oddly like that of her nephew. Flamby knew in a moment that Mrs. Chumley was a sweet old lady, and that hers was one of those rare natures whose possessors see ill in no one, but good in all.

"Dear me," said Mrs. Chumley, in a surprised silvery voice, a voice peculiarly restful and soothing, "it is Don." She stood up. "Yes, it is Don, and this is Flamby. Come here, dear, and let me look at you."

Flamby advanced swiftly, holding out her hand, which Mrs. Chumley took, and the other as well, drawing her close and kissing her on the cheek in the simple, natural manner of a mother. Then Mrs. Chumley held her at arms' length, surveying her, and began to muse aloud.

"She is very pretty, Don," she said. "You told me she was pretty, I remember. She is a sweet little girl, but I don't think black suits her. Do you think black suits her?"

"Any old thing suits her," replied Don, "but she looks a picture in white."

"Quite agree, Don, she would. Couldn't you dress in white, dear?"

"If nobody thought it too awful I would. Dad never believed in mourning."

"Quite agree. Most peculiar that I should agree with him, but I do. Don does not believe in mourning, either. I should be most annoyed if he wore mourning. Was your mother pretty? Don't tell me if it makes you cry. What beautiful hair you have. Hasn't she beautiful hair, Don? May I take your hat off, dear?"

"Of course," said Flamby, taking off her hat immediately, whereupon the mop of unruly hair all coppery waves and gold-flecked foam came tumbling about her face.

"Dear me," continued Mrs. Chumley, whilst Don stood behind her watching the scene amusedly, "it is remarkable hair." Indeed the sight of Flamby's hair seemed almost to have stupefied her. "She is really very pretty. I like you awfully, dear. I am glad you are going to live near me. What did you call her, Don?"

"What did I call her, Aunt?"

"When you first came in. Oh, yes—a squirrel." She placed her arm around Flamby and gave her a little hug. "Quite agree; she is a squirrel. You are a country squirrel, dear. Do you mind?"

"Of course not," said Flamby, laughing. "You couldn't pay me a nicer compliment."

"No," replied Mrs. Chumley, lapsing into thoughtful mood. "I suppose I couldn't. Squirrels are very pretty. I am afraid I was never like a squirrel. How many inches are you round the waist?"

"I don't know. About twenty," replied Flamby, suddenly stricken with shyness; "but I'm only little."

"Are you little, dear? I should not have called you little. You are taller than I am."

Since Mrs. Chumley was far from tall, the criterion was peculiar, but Flamby accepted it without demur. "I'm wearing high heels," she said. "I am no taller than you, really."

"I should have thought you were, dear. I am glad you wear high heels. They are so smart. It's a mistake to wear low heels. Men hate them. Don't you think men hate them, Don?"

"The consensus of modern masculine opinion probably admits distaste for flat-heeled womanhood, in spite of classic tradition."

"Dear me, that might be Paul Mario. Do you like Paul Mario, dear?"—turning again to Flamby and repeating the little hug.

Flamby lowered her head quickly. "Yes," she replied.

"I thought you would. He's so handsome. Don't you think him handsome?"

"Yes."

"He is astonishingly clever, too. Everybody is talking about what they call his New Gospel. Do you believe in his New Gospel, dear?"

"I don't know what it is."

"I'm not quite sure that I do. What is his New Gospel, Don?"

"That he alone can explain, Aunt. But it is going to stir up the world. Paul is a genius—the only true genius of the age."

"Quite agree. I don't know that it isn't just as well. Don't you think it may be just as well, dear?"

"I don't know," said Flamby, looking up slowly.

"I'm not quite sure that I do. Has your furniture arrived, dear?"

"Not yet, Aunt," replied Don on Flamby's behalf. "Most of it will have to be purchased, and I thought you might give Flamby some sort of a notion what to buy. Then we could trot off up town and get things."

"How delightful. I should have loved to join you, but I have promised to lunch with Mrs. Pooney, and I couldn't disappoint her. She is downstairs now, cooking a chicken. Someone sent her a chicken. Wasn't that nice?"

"Very decent of someone. I hope it is a tender chicken. And now, Aunt, could Flamby take a peep at your place and perhaps make a sort of list. Some of the things we could get to-day, and perhaps to-morrow you could run along with her and complete the purchases."

"I should love it. Dear me!" Into the round blue eyes came suddenly tears of laughter, and Mrs. Chumley became convulsed with silent merriment, glancing helplessly from Don to Flamby. This merriment was contagious; so that ere long all three were behaving quite ridiculously.

"Whatever is the Aunt laughing about?" inquired Don.

"Dear me!" gasped Mrs. Chumley, struggling to regain composure—"poor child! Of course you have nowhere to sleep to-night. How ridiculous—a squirrel without a nest." She hugged Flamby affectionately. "You will stay with me, dear, won't you?"

"Oh, but really—may I? Have you room?"

"Certainly, dear. Friends often stay with me. I have a queer thing in my sitting-room that looks like a bookcase, but is really a bed. You can stay with me just as long as you like. There is no hurry to get your own place ready, is there? There isn't any hurry, is there, Don?"

"No particular hurry, Aunt. But, naturally, Flamby will get things in order as soon as possible."

"Thank you so much," said Flamby, faint traces of mist disturbing her sight.

"Not at all, dear. I'm glad. The longer you stay the gladder I shall be. What an absurd word—gladder. There is something wrong about it, surely, Don?"

"More glad would perhaps be preferable, Aunt."

Mrs. Chumley immediately succumbed to silent merriment for a time. "How absurd!" she said presently. "Gladder! I don't believe there is such a word in the dictionary. Do you believe there is such a word in the dictionary, dear?"

"I don't think there is," replied Flamby.

"No, I expect there isn't. I don't know that it may not be just as well. Come along, dear. You can come, too, if you like, Don, or you might prefer to look at your own drawings in the Courier. If I drew I should love to look at my own drawings. You may smoke here, Don, of course. A number of the residents smoke. Do you smoke, Flamby?"

"No, but I think I should like it."

"Quite agree. It is soothing. You will wait here, then, Don? Come along, dear."

IV

An hour later when Flamby and Don came out of The Hostel, the rain clouds were breaking, and sunlight—somewhat feeble, but sunlight withal—was seeking bravely to disperse the gloom. Flamby was conscious of an altered outlook; the world after all was not utterly grey; such was the healing influence of a sympathetic soul.

"You know," said Don, as they passed through the gateway, "I am delighted with the way you have taken to the dear old Aunt. She is so often misunderstood, and it makes me writhe to see people laugh at her—unkindly, I mean. Of course her method of conversation is ridiculously funny, I know; but a woman who can suffer the misfortunes which have befallen the Aunt and come out with the heart of a child is worth studying, I think. Personally, I always feel a lot better after a chat with her. She is a perfect well of sympathy."

"I think she is the sweetest woman I have ever met," declared Flamby earnestly. "How could anyone help loving her?"

"People don't or won't understand her, you see, and misunderstanding is the mother of intolerance. Ah! there is a taxi on the rank."

"Oh," cried Flamby quickly—"please don't get another cab for me."

"Eh? No cab?"

"I cannot afford it and I could not think of allowing you to pay for everything."

"Now let us have a thorough understanding, Flamby," said Don, standing facing her, that sunny rejuvenating smile making his tanned face look almost boyish. "You remember what I said on the subject of misunderstanding? Listen, then: I am on leave and my money is burning a hole in my pocket; money always does. If I had a sister—I have but she is married and lives at Harrogate—I should ask her to take pity upon me and spend a few days in my company. An exchange of views with some nice girl who understands things is imperative after one has been out of touch with everything feminine for months and months. It is a natural desire which must be satisfied, otherwise it leads a man to resort to desperate measures in the quest for sympathy. Because of your father you are more to me than a sister, Flamby, and if you will consent to my treating you as one you will be performing an act of charity above price. The Aunt quite understands and approves. Isn't that good enough?"

Flamby met his gaze honestly and was satisfied. "Yes," she replied. "Myself and what is mine to you and yours is now converted." The end of the quotation was almost inaudible, for it had leapt from Flamby's tongue unbidden. The idea that Don might suspect her of seeking to impress him with her learning was hateful to her. But Don on the contrary was quite frankly delighted.

"Hullo!" he cried—"is that Portia?"

"Yes, but please don't take any notice if I say funny things. I don't mean to. Dad loved The Merchant of Venice, and I know quite a lot of lines by heart."

"How perfectly delightful to meet a girl who wears neither sensible boots nor spectacles but who appreciates Shakespeare! Lud! I thought such treasures were mythical. Flamby, I have a great idea. If you love Portia you will love Ellen Terry. I suppose her Portia is no more than a memory of the old Lyceum days, but it is a golden memory, Flamby. Ellen Terry is at the Coliseum. Shall we go to-night? Perhaps the Aunt would join us."