nd a fairer creature
than the vermilion giant that had borne Aunt Juley to her doom three
years before.

"Presumably it's very beautiful," she said. "How do you like it, Crane?"

"Come, let's be starting," repeated her host. "How on earth did you know
that my chauffeur was called Crane?"

"Why, I know Crane; I've been for a drive with Evie once. I know that
you've got a parlourmaid called Milton. I know all sorts of things."

"Evie!" he echoed in injured tones. "You won't see her. She's gone out
with Cahill. It's no fun, I can tell you, being left so much alone. I've
got my work all day--indeed, a great deal too much of it--but when I
come home in the evening, I tell you, I can't stand the house."

"In my absurd way, I'm lonely too," Margaret replied. "It's
heart-breaking to leave one's old home. I scarcely remember anything
before Wickham Place, and Helen and Tibby were born there. Helen says--"

"You, too, feel lonely?"

"Horribly. Hullo, Parliament's back!"

Mr. Wilcox glanced at Parliament contemptuously. The more important
ropes of life lay elsewhere. "Yes, they are talking again," said he.
"But you were going to say--"

"Only some rubbish about furniture. Helen says it alone endures while
men and houses perish, and that in the end the world will be a desert of
chairs and sofas--just imagine it!--rolling through infinity with no one
to sit upon them."

"Your sister always likes her little joke."

"She says 'Yes,' my brother says `No,' to Ducie Street. It's no fun
helping us, Mr. Wilcox, I assure you."

"You are not as unpractical as you pretend. I shall never believe it."

Margaret laughed. But she was--quite as unpractical. She could not
concentrate on details. Parliament, the Thames, the irresponsive
chauffeur, would flash into the field of house-hunting, and all demand
some comment or response. It is impossible to see modern life steadily
and see it whole, and she had chosen to see it whole. Mr. Wilcox saw
steadily. He never bothered over the mysterious or the private. The
Thames might run inland from the sea, the chauffeur might conceal all
passion and philosophy beneath his unhealthy skin. They knew their own
business, and he knew his.

Yet she liked being with him. He was not a rebuke, but a stimulus, and
banished morbidity. Some twenty years her senior, he preserved a gift
that she supposed herself to have already lost--not youth's creative
power, but its self-confidence and optimism. He was