uernsey, and
sighting the low Brittany rocks. Memorable days to Arthur Rhodes. He saw
perpetually the one golden centre in new scenes. He heard her voice, he
treasured her sayings; her gestures, her play of lip and eyelid, her lift
of head, lightest movements, were imprinted on him, surely as the heavens
are mirrored in the quiet seas, firmly and richly as earth answers to the
sprinkled grain. For he was blissfully athirst, untroubled by a hope. She
gave him more than she knew of: a present that kept its beating heart
into the future; a height of sky, a belief in nobility, permanent through
manhood down to age. She was his foam-born Goddess of those leaping
waters; differently hued, crescented, a different influence. He had a
happy week, and it charmed Diana to hear him tell her so. In spite of
Redworth, she had faith in the fruit-bearing powers of a time of simple
happiness, and shared the youth's in reflecting it. Only the happiness
must be simple, that of the glass to the lovely face: no straining of
arms to retain, no heaving of the bosom in vacancy.

His poverty and capacity for pure enjoyment led her to think of him
almost clingingly when hard news reached her from the quaint old City of
London, which despises poverty and authorcraft and all mean adventurers,
and bows to the lordly merchant, the mighty financier, Redworth's
incarnation of the virtues. Happy days on board the yacht Clarissa! Diana
had to recall them with effort. They who sow their money for a promising
high percentage have built their habitations on the sides of the most
eruptive mountain in Europe. AEtna supplies more certain harvests, wrecks
fewer vineyards and peaceful dwellings. The greed of gain is our volcano.
Her wonder leapt up at the slight inducement she had received to embark
her money in this Company: a South-American mine, collapsed almost within
hearing of the trumpets of prospectus, after two punctual payments of the
half-yearly interest. A Mrs. Ferdinand Cherson, an elder sister of the
pretty Mrs. Fryar-Gunnett, had talked to her of the cost of things one
afternoon at Lady Singleby's garden-party, and spoken of the City as the
place to help to swell an income, if only you have an acquaintance with
some of the chief City men. The great mine was named, and the rush for
allotments. She knew a couple of the Directors. They vowed to her that
ten per cent. was a trifle; the fortune to be expected out of the mine
was already clearly estimab