a little while this afternoon, and
sit here when you're all out sight-seeing?"

I reassured her, saying that her eyes looked no worse than if she'd been
indulging in a "good cry." She decided, however, that if Somerled came
she would bandage them again and continue to resemble Justice. I didn't
ruffle her feelings by remarking that morally the resemblance would be a
parody.

When Maud Vanneck and I went, soon after luncheon, to ask if Barrie
would walk in Princes Street, with perhaps a stroll along the High
Street, and on to Holyrood or the Castle, I found Mrs. James in Mrs.
Bal's sitting-room with the two Douglases and the four Americans. The
mother and daughter had returned late from rehearsal, and had just
finished luncheon. Mrs. Bal had a letter in her hand, which had
evidently arrived with a box of orchids, probably a tribute from
Bennett; and the lady's desire to get us out of the way suggested the
imminent arrival of a caller worth keeping to herself.

Finally, it was arranged that we should all go out together, the
Douglases assuring the rest of us that they could open doors which would
be shut to strangers.

"Where's Somerled?" I asked Mrs. James, in case he were condescending to
lie in wait somewhere.

"When I saw him last," she replied, "he'd got an immense pile of foreign
letters, and several cablegrams. It looked as if he'd enough to occupy
him the whole afternoon. Important business I suppose; yet in spite of
all, I believe he's been concerning himself with some surprise for me.
He may perhaps have news I shall like to hear when I get back. I expect
he's been telling some friend about those Stuart chairs I want to sell,
and thinks he's got me a buyer."

The Douglases took us to see the _Scotsman_ building, and the secret,
inner workings of a great newspaper. We descended from marble halls to
vast underground regions, the lair of a monster immeasurably more
powerful than the Minotaur who ramped and raved under the Palace of
Crete. The roar of this modern Minotaur was as the noise of Niagara
broken by stormy bursts of thunder. It stunned the intelligence; it
shrivelled the organs of speech like a dried kernel rattling impotently
in an old nutshell. It filled the world and made human happenings, such
as individual lives and deaths, seem of no more importance than the
snapping of thumb and finger in front of a cataract. I couldn't have
lived in the tumult long and kept my wits; but we heard of an employ