um. You've no idea
how well those columns of honey-coloured Travertine would become you,
Michael. But I'm so glad to see that you have not yet clothed yourself
in khaki. This toy war is so utterly absurd. I feel as if I were living
in a Christmas bazaar. How dreadfully these puttees and haversacks
debase even the most beautiful figures. What is a haversack? It sounds
so Lenten, so eloquent of mortification. I have discovered some charming
Cyprian cigarettes. Do come and let me watch you enjoy them. How young
you look, and yet how old!"

"I'm feeling very fit," said Michael loftily.

"How abruptly informative you are! What has happened to you?"

"I'm thinking about this war."

"Good gracious," cried Wilmot in mincing amazement. "What an odd
subject. Soon you will be telling me that by moonlight you brood upon
the Albert Memorial. But perhaps your mind is full of trophies. Perhaps
you are picturing to yourself in Piccadilly a second column of Trajan
displacing the amorous and acrobatic Cupid who now presides over the
painted throng. Come with me some evening to the Long Bar at the
Criterion, and while the Maori-like barmaids titter in their
_devergondage_, we will select the victorious site and picture to
ourselves the Boer commanders chained like hairy Scythians to the
chariot of whatever absurd general chooses to accept the triumph awarded
to him by our legislative _bourgeoisie_."

"I think I must be getting on," said Michael.

"How urgent! You speak like Phaeton or Icarus, and pray remember the
calamities that befell them. But seriously, when are you coming to see
me?"

"Oh, I'm rather busy," said Michael briefly.

Wilmot looked at him curiously with his glittering eyes for a moment.
Then he spoke again:

"Farewell, Narcissus. Have you learnt that I was but a shallow pool in
which to watch your reflection? Did I flatter you too much or not
enough? Who shall say? But you know I'm always your friend, and when
this love-affair is done, I shall always be interested to hear the
legend of it told movingly when and where you will, but perhaps best of
all in October when the full moon lies like a huge apricot upon the
chimneys of the town. Farewell, Narcissus. Does she display your graces
very clearly?"

"I'm not in love with anybody, if that's what you mean," said Michael.

"No? But you are on the margin of a strange pool, and soon you will be
peeping over the bulrushes to stare at yourself again."

Then Mr. W