ase. "Wasting yourself!" What had he done with that
letter of Diana's? He remembered Gyp's coming in just as he finished
reading it. Searching the pigeonholes and drawers, moving everything
that lay about, he twitched the bust--and the letter lay disclosed. He
took it up with a sigh of relief:

"DEAR BRYAN,

"But I say--you ARE wasting yourself. Why, my dear, of course! 'Il faut
se faire valoir!' You have only one foot to put forward; the other is
planted in I don't know what mysterious hole. One foot in the grave--at
thirty! Really, Bryan! Pull it out. There's such a lot waiting for you.
It's no good your being hoity-toity, and telling me to mind my business.
I'm speaking for everyone who knows you. We all feel the blight on the
rose. Besides, you always were my favourite cousin, ever since I was five
and you a horrid little bully of ten; and I simply hate to think of you
going slowly down instead of quickly up. Oh! I know 'D--n the world!'
But--are you? I should have thought it was 'd--ning' you! Enough! When
are you coming to see us? I've read that book. The man seems to think
love is nothing but passion, and passion always fatal. I wonder!
Perhaps you know.

"Don't be angry with me for being such a grandmother.

"Au revoir.

"Your very good cousin,

"DIANA LEYTON."

He crammed the letter into his pocket, and sat there, appalled. It must
have lain two days under that bust! Had Gyp seen it? He looked at the
bronze face; and the philosopher looked back from the hollows of his
eyes, as if to say: "What do you know of the human heart, my boy--your
own, your mistress's, that girl's, or anyone's? A pretty dance the heart
will lead you yet! Put it in a packet, tie it round with string, seal it
up, drop it in a drawer, lock the drawer! And to-morrow it will be out
and skipping on its wrappings. Ho! Ho!" And Summerhay thought: 'You
old goat. You never had one!' In the room above, Gyp would still be
standing as he had left her, putting the last touch to her hair--a man
would be a scoundrel who, even in thought, could--"Hallo!" the eyes of
the bust seemed to say. "Pity! That's queer, isn't it? Why not pity
that red-haired girl, with the skin so white that it burns you, and the
eyes so brown that they burn you--don't they?" Old Satan! Gyp had his
heart; no one in the world would ever take it from her!

And in the chair where she had sat last night conjuring up memories, he
too now conju