that feeling
about you. Such things almost make one believe in the old Hindu ideas.
Perhaps in some other world and age we have been friends already. It's
really very mysterious...."

"But, after all," said Amaldi, "mystery is what makes life worth while."

"I know," she said; "yet people are always trying to solve it...."

"Yes; that's one of its chief uses, I suppose--but not its end."

Sophy looked at him, interested.

"What do you think its end is?" she asked.

"Itself," he answered. He went on in a lighter tone: "The destiny of the
Churchly God has always seemed so dreary to me. Think of it! A supremely
well-informed Supreme Man--for whom there could be no mystery. An
immortality of sound information that couldn't be added to or subtracted
from!"

"We really couldn't help being friends, you know!" said Sophy, smiling.
"You must come to see me. My husband is not very well--so I don't give
dinners or parties or go out much myself. But I like to have my friends
come to see me."

Amaldi thought:

"You have the most beautiful heart, and I don't misunderstand it. It is
full only of kindness. I shall suffer ... _ma ciao!_"

"_Ciao_" is Milanese, and it means many things.

V

It was four o'clock when Sophy and Mrs. Arundel left the ball. Olive
would not hear of her taking a cab, but sent her home in her own
carriage. As she rolled through the empty streets, above which the dawn
was beginning to quicken, Sophy had a queer feeling of driving through
the echoing halls of a vast and sinister house from which the roof had
been lifted.

Above Regent's Park a late moon hung bleak and glassy. It shone with
that wan glare as of a planet sick to death. Richard Burton's line about
the moon occurred to her: "A corpse upon the way of night." The reaction
of her extraordinary exhilaration of the early evening was upon her. All
about her seemed eldritch, sinister. Even the sparrows, the town's
familiars, the excellent, shrewd gossips of the pavement, seemed unlike
real birds.

When she entered her own hall, the sight of the pallid, heavy-eyed
footman who admitted her distressed her still further. She hated
servants to have to wait up for her. She always gave Tilda strict orders
to go to bed.

The footman lighted and gave her her bedroom candle. Chesney disliked
gas to burn all night.

"Good-night, William. I'm afraid you are very tired," said Sophy.

"Not at all, madam," said William politely. His tone sugg