must be remembered, in fairness to
Tommy, that all artists love sympathy. This sympathy uncorked him, and
our Tommy could flow comparatively freely at last. Observe the
delicious change.

"Has that story got abroad?" he said simply. "The matter is one which,
I need not say, I have never mentioned to a soul."

"Of course not," the lady said, and waited eagerly.

If Tommy had been an expert he might have turned the conversation to
brighter topics, but he was not; there had already been long pauses,
and in dinner talk it is perhaps allowable to fling on any faggot
rather than let the fire go out. "It is odd that I should be talking
of it now," he said musingly.

"I suppose," she said gently, to bring him out of the reverie into
which he had sunk, "I suppose it happened some time ago?"

"Long, long ago," he answered. (Having written as an aged person, he
often found difficulty in remembering suddenly that he was two and
twenty.)

"But you are still a very young man."

"It seems long ago to me," he said with a sigh.

"Was she beautiful?"

"She was beautiful to my eyes."

"And as good, I am sure, as she was beautiful."

"Ah me!" said Tommy.

His confidante was burning to know more, and hoping they were being
observed across the table; but she was a kind, sentimental creature,
though stout, or because of it, and she said, "I am so afraid that my
questions pain you."

"No, no," said Tommy, who was very, very happy.

"Was it very sudden?"

"Fever."

"Ah! but I meant your attachment."

"We met and we loved," he said with gentle dignity.

"That is the true way," said the lady.

"It is the only way," he said decisively.

"Mr. Sandys, you have been so good, I wonder if you would tell me her
name?"

"Felicity," he said, with emotion. Presently he looked up. "It is very
strange to me," he said wonderingly, "to find myself saying these
things to you who an hour ago were a complete stranger to me. But you
are not like other women."

"No, indeed!" said the lady, warmly.

"That," he said, "must be why I tell you what I have never told to
another human being. How mysterious are the workings of the heart!"

"Mr. Sandys," said the lady, quite carried away, "no words of mine can
convey to you the pride with which I hear you say that. Be assured
that I shall respect your confidences." She missed his next remark
because she was wondering whether she dare ask him to come to dinner
on the twenty-fifth, and then t