th its
hideous rows of stuccoed villas, loomed before his eyes and confirmed
his swiftly born disinclination to taking at once this final and ominous
step. Something all the time seemed to be drawing him in another
direction, the faint magic of a fragrant memory--a dream, was it--that
he had carried with him unconsciously through a wilderness of empty
days? He hesitated, and finally climbed up on to the garden seat of an
omnibus on its way to Victoria.

CHAPTER IX

THE LAND OF ENCHANTMENT

"I do not think," the girl with the blue eyes said, diffidently, "that I
gave you permission to sit down here."

"I do not believe," Burton admitted, "that I asked for it. Still,
having just saved your life--"

"Saved my life!"

"Without a doubt," Burton insisted, firmly. She laughed in his face.
When she laughed, she was good to look upon. She had firm white teeth,
light brown hair which fell in a sort of fringe about her forehead, and
eyes which could be dreamy but were more often humorous. She was not
tall and she was inclined to be slight, but her figure was lithe, full
of beautiful spring and reach.

"You drove away a cow!" she exclaimed. "It is only because I am rather
idiotic about cows that I happened to be afraid. I am sure that it was
a perfectly harmless animal."

"On the contrary," he assured her seriously, "there was something in the
eye of that cow which almost inspired me with fear. Did you notice the
way it lashed its tail?"

"Absurd!"

"At least," he protested, "you cannot find it absurd that I prefer to
sit here with you in the shadow of your lilac trees, to trudging any
further along that dusty road?"

"You haven't the slightest right to be here at all," she reminded him.
"I didn't even invite you to come in."

He sighed.

"Women have so little sense of consequence," he murmured. "When you
came in through that gate without saying good-bye, I naturally concluded
that I was expected to follow, especially as you had just pointed this
out to me as being your favorite seat."

Again she laughed. Then she stopped suddenly and looked at him. He
really was a somewhat difficult person to place.

"If I hadn't a very irritable parent to consider," she declared, "I
think I should ask you to tea."

Burton looked very sad.

"You need not have put it into my head," he objected gently. "The inn
smells so horribly of the beer that other people have drunk. Besides, I
have come such a long way--just for a g