e a really lasting
impression. Even when she left him alone, watching him, I fear, over
the top of her novel, he disappointed himself. For five minutes or so
everything would go well; he looked as dejected as possible; but as he
fell he was succeeding he became so self-satisfied that he began to
strut. A pleased expression crossed his face, and instead of allowing
his head to hang dismally, he put it well back. Sometimes, when we
wanted to please him, we said he looked as glum as a mute at a funeral.
Even that, however, defeated his object, for it flattered him so much
that he smiled with gratification.

[Illustration]

Gilray made one great sacrifice by giving up smoking, though not indeed
such a sacrifice as mine, for up to this time he did not know the
Arcadia Mixture. Perhaps the only time he really did look as miserable
as he wished was late at night when we men sat up for a second last pipe
before turning in. He looked wistfully at us from a corner. Yet as She
had gone to rest, cruel fate made this of little account. His gloomy
face saddened us too, and we tried to entice him to shame by promising
not to mention it to the ladies. He almost yielded, and showed us that
while we smoked he had been holding his empty brier in his right hand.
For a moment he hesitated, then said fiercely that he did not care for
smoking. Next night he was shown a novel, the hero of which had been
"refused." Though the lady's hard-heartedness had a terrible effect on
this fine fellow, he "strode away blowing great clouds into the air."
"Standing there smoking in the moonlight," the authoress says in her
next chapter, "De Courcy was a strangely romantic figure. He looked like
a man who had done everything, who had been through the furnace and had
not come out of it unscathed." This was precisely what Gilray wanted to
look like. Again he hesitated, and then put his pipe in his pocket.

It was now that I approached him with the Arcadia Mixture. I seldom
recommend the Arcadia to men whom I do not know intimately, lest in
the after-years I should find them unworthy of it. But just as Aladdin
doubtless rubbed his lamp at times for show, there were occasions when
I was ostentatiously liberal. If, after trying the Arcadia, the lucky
smoker to whom I presented it did not start or seize my hand, or
otherwise show that something exquisite had come into his life, I at
once forgot his name and his existence. I approached Gilray, then,
and without