a tiny "Crucifixion" by da Messina--the thinnest of high
crosses, the thinnest of simple, humble, suffering Christs, lonely, and
actual in the clear, darkened landscape.

"I think that touches one more than the big, idealized sort. One feels
it WAS like that. Oh! And look--the Francesca's! Aren't they lovely?"

He repeated:

"Yes; lovely!" But his eyes said: "And so are you."

They spent two hours among those endless pictures, talking a little of
art and of much besides, almost as alone as in the railway carriage.
But, when she had refused to let him walk back with her, Summerhay stood
stock-still beneath the colonnade. The sun streamed in under; the
pigeons preened their feathers; people passed behind him and down there
in the square, black and tiny against the lions and the great column. He
took in nothing of all that. What was it in her? She was like no one he
had ever known--not one! Different from girls and women in society
as--Simile failed. Still more different from anything in the half-world
he had met! Not the new sort--college, suffrage! Like no one! And he
knew so little of her! Not even whether she had ever really been in
love. Her husband--where was he; what was he to her? "The rare, the
mute, the inexpressive She!" When she smiled; when her eyes--but her
eyes were so quick, would drop before he could see right into them! How
beautiful she had looked, gazing at that picture--her favourite, so
softly, her lips just smiling! If he could kiss them, would he not go
nearly mad? With a deep sigh, he moved down the wide, grey steps into
the sunlight. And London, throbbing, overflowing with the season's life,
seemed to him empty. To-morrow--yes, to-morrow he could call!

IV

After that Sunday call, Gyp sat in the window at Bury Street close to a
bowl of heliotrope on the window-sill. She was thinking over a passage
of their conversation.

"Mrs. Fiorsen, tell me about yourself."

"Why? What do you want to know?"

"Your marriage?"

"I made a fearful mistake--against my father's wish. I haven't seen my
husband for months; I shall never see him again if I can help it. Is
that enough?"

"And you love him?"

"No."

"It must be like having your head in chancery. Can't you get it out?"

"No."

"Why?"

"Divorce-court! Ugh! I couldn't!"

"Yes, I know--it's hellish!"

Was he, who gripped her hand so hard and said that, really the same
nonchalant young man who had lea