icked up the odours
of the Seringa and flowering currant in the Kurgarten, and threw itself
in at the open window of the coffee-room of the Hotel of the Four
Seasons.

Jack Meredith was restless. Such odours as are borne on the morning
breeze are apt to make those men restless who have not all that they
want. And is not their name legion? The morning breeze is to the strong
the moonlight of the sentimental. That which makes one vaguely yearn
incites the other to get up and take.

By the train leaving Wiesbaden for Cologne, "over Mainz," as the
guide-book hath it, Jack Meredith left for England, in which country
he had not set foot for fifteen months. Guy Oscard was in Cashmere; the
Simiacine was almost forgotten as a nine days' wonder except by those
who live by the ills of mankind. Millicent Chyne had degenerated into a
restless society "hack." With great skill she had posed as a martyr. She
had allowed it to be understood that she, having remained faithful to
Jack Meredith through his time of adversity, had been heartlessly thrown
over when fortune smiled upon him and there was a chance of his making a
more brilliant match. With a chivalry which was not without a keen shaft
of irony, father and son allowed this story to pass uncontradicted.
Perhaps a few believed it; perhaps they had foreseen the future. It may
have been that they knew that Millicent Chyne, surrounded by the halo
of whatever story she might invent, would be treated with a certain
careless nonchalance by the older men, with a respectful avoidance by
the younger. Truly women have the deepest punishment for their sins here
on earth; for sooner or later the time will come--after the brilliancy
of the first triumph, after the less pure satisfaction of the skilled
siren--the time will come when all that they want is an enduring, honest
love. And it is written that an enduring love cannot, with the best will
in the world, be bestowed on an unworthy object. If a woman wishes to
be loved purely she must have a pure heart, and NO PAST, ready for the
reception of that love. This is a sine qua non. The woman with a past
has no future.

The short March day was closing in over London with that murky
suggestion of hopelessness affected by metropolitan eventide when Jack
Meredith presented himself at the door of his father's house.

In his reception by the servants there was a subtle suggestion of
expectation which was not lost on his keen mind. There is no patie