cent seat, started
up and said "Ssh!".

He whom the man with the nose had addressed now spoke. "I have
certainly never thought before of a red nose as a sorrowful thing, but
as you put it...."

"I thought you would understand. I have had this nose all my life.
The outline was done, even though the colour was wanting, in my school
days. They called me 'Nosey,' 'Ovid,' 'Cicero,' 'Rhino,' and the
'Excrescence.' It has ripened with the slow years, as fate deepens in
the progress of a tragedy. Love, the business of life, is a sealed
book to me. To be alone! I would thank heaven.... But no! a blind
woman could feel the shape of it."

"Besides love," interrupted the young man thoughtfully, "there are
other things worth living for--duty. An unattractive nose would not
interfere with that. Some people think it is rather more important
than love. I admit your loss, of course."

"That only carries out the evidence of your voice, and tells me you are
young. My dear young fellow, duty is a very fine thing indeed, but
believe me, it is too colourless as a motive. There is no delight in
duty. You will know that at my age. And besides, I have an infinite
capacity for love and sympathy, an infinite bitterness in this solitude
of my soul. I infer that you would moralise on my discontent, but I
know I have seen a little of men and things from behind this
ambuscade--only a truly artistic man would fall into the sympathetic
attitude that attracted me. My life has had even too much of
observation in it, and to the systematic anthropologist, nothing tells
a man's character more than his pose after dark, when nobody seems
watching. As you sit, the black outline of you is clear against the
sky. Ah! _now_ you are sitting stiffer. But you are no Calvinist. My
friend, the best of life is its delights, and the best of delights is
loving and being loved. And for that--this nose! Well, there are
plenty of second-best things. After dark I can forget the monster a
little. Spring is delightful, air on the Downs is delightful; it is
fine to see the stars circling in the sky, while lying among the
heather. Even this London sky is soothing at night, though the edge is
all inflamed. The shadow of my nose is darkest by day. But to-night I
am bitter, because of to-morrow."

"Why, to-morrow?" said the younger man.

"I have to meet some new people to-morrow," said the man with the nose.
"There is an odd look, a mingling of am