g. Scattered here and there, under the thin shade of blossoming
trees, he caught glimpses of white prams with their attendant nurses.
The little houses--his own among them--stood all a-row, shoulder to
shoulder, looking intensely smiling and habitable. His imagination
reconjured all the midnights they had witnessed--the home-comings under
cover of darkness, the secret endearments of lovers, the muffled
laughter. Then he remembered his own dream, which he had planned to
share with her. It was intolerable that it should escape conversion into
reality.

It seemed little short of marvelous that she should still sit beside
him. She should have vanished with the Square. Had he given her a name,
he would have called her his lady in heliotrope, for she was dressed in
a heliotrope gown, trimmed round the hem and throat with gray opossum
and topped with a little close-fitting turban of color and fur to match.
She looked so dainty and subtly haughty, so austere in her virginal
beauty, that it seemed to him he must have wronged her with his silent
conjectures.

"You're more than ordinarily pretty to-day," he said.

"Am I? What you mean, I suppose, is that you like my gown. It's a new
one. I'm wearing it for the first time, especially for you."

She turned her laughing face towards him, violet eyes, flushed cheeks,
golden hair, white teeth--everything aflash with instant gratitude. The
discovery of how easily he could command her happiness touched him.

"Can I make you as merry as all that just by telling you you're
beautiful?"

She compressed her lips and nodded. "It's not being told. That doesn't
matter. It's being told by you."

He felt for the moment that he had recovered her--that he had bridged
the gulf of the years that divided. Before anything further could be
said, they were halting in Mulberry Tree Court.

III

On entering the house with the marigold-tinted curtains he had glanced
round casually for any signs of Lady Dawn. After Porter had shown him
into the drawing-room Terry had left him to go in search of Maisie. He
walked over to the tall French-windows and found himself once more
gazing out on the garden-rockery with its oval lake, its silent fountain
and its toy-boat that never sailed anywhere. He made an effort to
continue gazing out, for his impulse was to turn and look at the
portrait over the fireplace. He tantalized himself by trying to ignore
it. But it was strange the fascination that it held for