him up again,
like the gross melody of a music-hall song, and caused him to drop
absently upon the first seat, quite unconscious that it was in an
unwholesome condition of moisture. He had turned his back on the
brilliant patches of yellow and copper-coloured chrysanthemums on
the flower-plots facing Park Lane, and he looked westwards over a
wider expanse of grass and trees: the grass bestrewed with bright
autumnal leaves, the trees obscured and formless, in a rising white
mist, through which a pale sun struggled and was vanquished. He had
never been in a fitter mood to appreciate the decay of the year, and
suddenly he was seized, in the midst of his depression, with an
immense thrill, almost causing him to throw out his arms with an
embracing gesture to the autumn, the very personal charm, the
mysterious and pitiful fascination of the season whose visible
beauty seems to include all spiritual things. It cast a spell over
him of a long mental silence, as one might say, in which all
definite thought expired, from which he aroused himself at last with
a shrug of self-contempt, to find inexplicable tears in his eyes.
And just then an interruption came, not altogether unwelcome, in the
greeting of a familiar voice. It was Lightmark, who had discovered
him in the course of a rapid walk down the Row, and had crossed over
the small patch of intervening grass to make his salutations.

"I knew you by your back," he remarked, after they had shaken
hands--"the ineffable languor of it; and, besides, who else but you
would sit for choice on an October evening in such a wretched
place?"

He looked down ruefully at his patent leather shoes, which the damp
grass had dulled.

Rainham smiled vaguely; he needed an effort to pull himself
together, to collect his energies sufficiently to meet the
commonplace of conversation, after the curious detachment into which
he had fallen; and he wondered aimlessly how long he had been there.

"I suppose, like everyone else, Dick," he remarked after a while,
"it is the weather which has brought you home at such an
unfashionable date."

"Yes," answered Lightmark; "it was very poor fun yachting. I shall
stay in town altogether next year, I think. And you--you are not
looking particularly fit; what have you done with yourself?"

"Oh, I am fit enough," said Rainham lightly; "I have been in London,
you see."

"Well, I can't let you go now you are here. Won't you dine with us?
Or rather--no, I b