se it. With the
oddest contradiction, at one and the same time she admired his gifts,
and felt a great compassion for him--the man. And this compassion could
not have been called forth by anything in the circumstances of his life.

"Thank you for being so pale to-night, dear lady," he said in his
abrupt, whimsical way. "One gets so weary of colour. How Iris must have
hated her rainbow at times. Our Englishwomen are too beautifully tinted.
One longs sometimes for the sight of an albino. Think of an assembly of
negroes and albinos. How austere and weird at the same time. Would you
have such an assembly garmented all in black or white or dull orange?"

"But orange is a colour," ventured Sophy, smiling.

Tyne grew extremely serious and impressive. "No; no! Pardon me. Orange
is only the earthly body of light. I think we should dress our assembly
in orange--the albinos in a clear tulip tint--the negroes in a fierce
saffron."

"Oswald! what _fwightful_ nonsense you talk at times!" cried Mrs.
Arundel, overhearing this. "Please go and take in Countess Hohenfels.
She's dying to hear you talk."

Tyne looked at her out of his heavy, swimming eyes.

"A German? You have given me a German for dinner? I see. You divined
that my mood would be musical. But Germans have mathematical
imaginations. Their music is the integral calculus of the spheres. It
is----"

Olive firmly drew him away, still pouring forth this flood of easy
nonsense.

At table, Sophy noticed that her husband glanced from her to Amaldi once
or twice. His look was hard and hostile. She determined to try to talk
as much as possible with both Tyne and Amaldi. This would be easier--as
it became at once evident that the dinner would be one of those
delightful occasions on which little groups talk together, even across
the table.

"When are you going to make me see another beautiful dawn?" asked Tyne
abruptly.

Sophy gazed at him. She wondered what was coming, and as he smiled at
her in his slow way, she thought how much worse it seemed for a poet to
have black teeth than for a mere, ordinary mortal like John Arundel.

"How did I make you see a beautiful dawn?" she asked, knowing that he
wanted her to put the question.

"By writing your 'Shadow of a Flame' and letting me read it. Yes--all
night I played with those lovely, flickering verses."

"You are too kind to me," she said shyly. "Tell me when I am to read
another of _your_ books--that are not shadows of f