t sardonic, lidded eyes of the foreigner. The latter sat
down beside him, and they began to talk, chiefly of horses.

Brangwen loved the other man for his exquisite graciousness,
for his tact and reserve, and for his ageless, monkey-like
self-surety. They talked of horses, and of Derbyshire, and of
farming. The stranger warmed to the young fellow with real
warmth, and Brangwen was excited. He was transported at meeting
this odd, middle-aged, dry-skinned man, personally. The talk was
pleasant, but that did not matter so much. It was the gracious
manner, the fine contact that was all.

They talked a long while together, Brangwen flushing like a
girl when the other did not understand his idiom. Then they said
good night, and shook hands. Again the foreigner bowed and
repeated his good night.

"Good night, and bon voyage."

Then he turned to the stairs.

Brangwen went up to his room and lay staring out at the stars
of the summer night, his whole being in a whirl. What was it
all? There was a life so different from what he knew it. What
was there outside his knowledge, how much? What was this that he
had touched? What was he in this new influence? What did
everything mean? Where was life, in that which he knew or all
outside him?

He fell asleep, and in the morning had ridden away before any
other visitors were awake. He shrank from seeing any of them
again, in the morning.

His mind was one big excitement. The girl and the foreigner:
he knew neither of their names. Yet they had set fire to the
homestead of his nature, and he would be burned out of cover. Of
the two experiences, perhaps the meeting with the foreigner was
the more significant. But the girl--he had not settled
about the girl.

He did not know. He had to leave it there, as it was. He
could not sum up his experiences.

The result of these encounters was, that he dreamed day and
night, absorbedly, of a voluptuous woman and of the meeting with
a small, withered foreigner of ancient breeding. No sooner was
his mind free, no sooner had he left his own companions, than he
began to imagine an intimacy with fine-textured, subtle-mannered
people such as the foreigner at Matlock, and amidst this subtle
intimacy was always the satisfaction of a voluptuous woman.

He went about absorbed in the interest and the actuality of
this dream. His eyes glowed, he walked with his head up, full of
the exquisite pleasure of aristocratic subtlety and grace,
tormented w