altby's great
achievement. I thought of writing to congratulate him, but feared this
might be in bad taste. I did, however, write asking him to lunch with
me. He did not answer my letter. I was, therefore, all the more sorry,
next Monday, at not finding 'and Mr. Stephen Braxton' in Keeb's week-end
catalogue.

A few days later I met Mr. Hookworth. He mentioned that Stephen Braxton
had left town. 'He has taken,' said Hookworth, 'a delightful bungalow on
the east coast. He has gone there to WORK.' He added that he had a great
liking for Braxton--'a man utterly UNSPOILT.' I inferred that he, too,
had written to Maltby and received no answer.

That butterfly did not, however, appear to be hovering from flower
to flower in the parterres of rank and fashion. In the daily lists of
guests at dinners, receptions, dances, balls, the name of Maltby figured
never. Maltby had not caught on.

Presently I heard that he, too, had left town. I gathered that he had
gone quite early in June--quite soon after Keeb. Nobody seemed to know
where he was. My own theory was that he had taken a delightful bungalow
on the west coast, to balance Braxton. Anyhow, the parity of the two
strivers was now somewhat re-established.

In point of fact, the disparity had been less than I supposed. While
Maltby was at Keeb, there Braxton was also--in a sense.... It was a
strange story. I did not hear it at the time. Nobody did. I heard it
seventeen years later. I heard it in Lucca.

Little Lucca I found so enchanting that, though I had only a day or two
to spare, I stayed there a whole month. I formed the habit of walking,
every morning, round that high-pitched path which girdles Lucca, that
wide and tree-shaded path from which one looks down over the city wall
at the fertile plains beneath Lucca. There were never many people there;
but the few who did come came daily, so that I grew to like seeing them
and took a mild personal interest in them.

One of them was an old lady in a wheeled chair. She was not less than
seventy years old, and might or might not have once been beautiful.
Her chair was slowly propelled by an Italian woman. She herself was
obviously Italian. Not so, however, the little gentleman who walked
assiduously beside her. Him I guessed to be English. He was a very stout
little gentleman, with gleaming spectacles and a full blond beard, and
he seemed to radiate cheerfulness. I thought at first that he might be
the old lady's resident p