r by corner the house was beautifully and sedately and
appropriately arranged.

"I give full marks to Prescott," said Stella later in the afternoon to
Michael. "He's like a nice horse."

"I think we ought to have had green curtains in the spare room," said
Michael.

"Why?" demanded Stella.

And when Michael tried to discover a reason, it was difficult to find
one.

"Well, why not?" he at last very lamely replied.

There followed upon that curiously staccato conversation between Michael
and Prescott in the empty house a crowded time of furnishing, while Mrs.
Fane with Michael and Stella stayed at the Sloane Street Hotel, chosen
by them as a convenient center from which to direct the multitudinous
activities set up by the adventure of moving. Michael, however, after
the first thrills of selection had died down, must be thinking about
going up again and be content to look forward on the strength of
Stella's energetic promises to coming down for the Easter vacation and
entering 173 Cheyne Walk as his home.

Michael excused himself to himself for not having visited any old
friends during this vacation by the business of house-hunting. Alan had
been away in Switzerland with his father, but Michael felt rather guilty
because he had never been near his old school nor even walked over to
Notting Hill to give Viner an account of his first term. It seemed to
him more important that he had corresponded with Lonsdale and Wedderburn
and Avery than that he should have sought out old friends. All that
Christmas vacation he was acutely conscious of the flowing past of old
associations and of a sense of transition into a new life that though as
yet barren of experience contained the promise of larger and worthier
experiences than it now seemed possible to him could have happened in
Carlington Road.

On the night before he went up Michael dined with Prescott at his rooms
in the Albany. He enjoyed the evening very much. He enjoyed the darkness
of the room whose life seemed to radiate from the gleaming table in its
center. He enjoyed the ghostly motions of the soldier-servant and the
half-obscured vision of stern old prints on the walls of the great
square room, and he enjoyed the intense silence that brooded outside the
heavily curtained windows. Here in the Albany Michael was immeasurably
aware of the life of London that was surging such a little distance
away; but in this modish cloister he felt that the life he was aware of
c