oisture. This sight affected him so that
he was glad to turn away and fetch a book to form a writing-pad.

When Mr. Stone had finished, he sat back in his chair with closed eyes.
A supreme silence reigned in the bare room above those two men of
different generations and of such strange dissimilarity of character.
Hilary broke that silence.

"I heard the cuckoo sing to-day," he said, almost in a whisper, lest Mr.
Stone should be asleep.

"The cuckoo," replied Mr. Stone, "has no sense of brotherhood."

"I forgive him-for his song," murmured Hilary.

"His song," said Mr. Stone, "is alluring; it excites the sexual
instinct."

Then to himself he added:

"She has not come, as yet!"

Even as he spoke there was heard by Hilary a faint tapping on the door.
He rose and opened it. The little model stood outside.

CHAPTER XXIX

RETURN OF THE LITTLE MODEL

That same afternoon in High Street, Kensington, "Westminister," with his
coat-collar raised against the inclement wind, his old hat spotted with
rain, was drawing at a clay pipe and fixing his iron-rimmed gaze on those
who passed him by. It had been a day when singularly few as yet had
bought from him his faintly green-tinged journal, and the low class of
fellow who sold the other evening prints had especially exasperated him.
His single mind, always torn to some extent between an ingrained loyalty
to his employers and those politics of his which differed from his
paper's, had vented itself twice since coming on his stand; once in these
words to the seller of "Pell Mells": "I stupulated with you not to come
beyond the lamp-post. Don't you never speak to me again--a-crowdin' of
me off my stand"; and once to the younger vendors of the less expensive
journals, thus: "Oh, you boys! I'll make you regret of it--a-snappin'
up my customers under my very nose! Wait until ye're old!" To which the
boys had answered: "All right, daddy; don't you have a fit. You'll be a
deader soon enough without that, y'know!"

It was now his time for tea, but "Pell Mell" having gone to partake of
this refreshment, he waited on, hoping against hope to get a customer or
two of that low fellow's. And while in black insulation he stood there a
timid voice said at his elbow--

"Mr. Creed!"

The aged butler turned, and saw the little model.

"Oh," he said dryly, "it's you, is it?" His mind, with its incessant
love of rank, knowing that she earned her living as a handmaid to that