old him more plainly that she loved
Lightmark--that Dick had merely to speak. Their silence only lasted
a moment; but it seemed to Rainham, who had not shifted his position
or moved a muscle, that it stretched over an interminable space of
time. It was curiously intangible, and yet even then he realized
that it would remain with its least accessories in his mind one of
those trivial, indelible photographs which last a lifetime. The
smell of mignonette that spread in from the window-box through the
turquoise-blue Venetian blinds; the chattering of the love-birds;
the strains of a waltz of Waldteufel's floating up from a German
band in the street below--they ran into a single sensation that was
like the stab of cold steel. He sat staring blankly at the tattered
bookshelves, playing mechanically with his teaspoon; and presently
he became aware that the young girl was talking, was telling him the
route they should take next week, and the name of the hotel they
were going to at Basel.

"Yes," he hazarded, and "Yes," and "Yes," his smiling lips belying
the lassitude of his eyes. Actually, he looked out and beyond her,
at another Eve, to whom he now paid his adieux. It was the dainty
little figure of her childish self which he saw, with its bright,
long hair, and its confiding eyes, and its caressing little ways, in
the deepening shadows between the bookshelves--and for the last
time. It vanished like a shadow, smiling mockingly, and he knew it
would never return. In its place abode henceforth the image of this
stately maiden, comely and desirable, with the profound eyes which
lighted up--for Dick. An unaccountable sense of failure stole over
Rainham--unaccountable because he could lay his finger upon no
tangible cause of his discomfiture.

CHAPTER XI

The little town was brilliant with September sunshine; the blue
smoke spired almost unbroken into the bluer vault above, and the
cream-coloured facades of the houses, with their faded blue shutters
and verandas, the gay striped awnings of the little fleet of rowing
boats, the gray of the stone parapet, and the dull green of the
mountainous opposite shore, were mirrored steeply in the bight of
narrowing, sunlit lake. The wide, dusty esplanade was almost empty,
except at the corners, where voluble market women gossiped over
their fruit-baskets, heaped with purple-brown figs, little
mountain-born strawberries, sweet, watery grapes, green almonds, and
stupendous pears. At