ke it was hard to
recognise her voice.

"What of him? What did he know? What did he tell you--of him?"

Douglas's expression of blank surprise seemed an immense relief to her.

"Only--something like what he told me of himself. He also was foolish
enough to fall in love with you, and--"

She rose suddenly and held out her hand.

"Come, my friend," she said, "I have had enough of this. Take me out to
my carriage. I think you are very wise to avoid such a dangerous
person."

She swept out of the room before him, and down the broad stairs. A
footman stood by the side of her victoria until she had settled herself
in the most comfortable corner. Then he mounted the box, and she leaned
for a moment forward.

"You won't come?" she asked, with a slight gesture of invitation towards
the vacant seat.

But Douglas, to whom the invitation seemed, in a sense, allegorical,
shook his head. He pointed eastwards.

"The taste of the lotus is sweet," he said, "but one must live."

CHAPTER XIX

A MAN WITHOUT A PAST

Whether Rice's point of view and judgment upon Emily de Reuss were
prejudiced or not, Douglas certainly passed from her influence into a
more robust and invigorating literary life. He gave up his expensive
chambers, sold the furniture, reorganised his expenses, and took a
single room in a dull little street off the Strand. Rice, aided by a
few friends, and also by Douglas's own growing reputation, secured his
admission into the same Bohemian club to which he and Drexley belonged.
For the first time, Douglas began to meet those who were, strictly
speaking, his fellows, and the wonderful good comradeship of his
newly-adopted profession was a thing gradually revealed to him. He made
many friends, studied hard, and did some brilliant work. He abandoned,
upon calmer reflection, the idea of going abroad, and was given to
understand that his position on the Courier might be regarded as a
permanency. He saw his future gradually defined in clearer colours--it
became obvious to him that his days of struggling were past and over.
He had won his place within the charmed circle of those who had been
tried and proved. Only there was always at the bottom of his heart a
secret dread, a shadowy terror, most often present when he found himself
alone with Rice or Emily de Reuss. It seemed to him that their eyes
were perpetually questioning him, and there was one subject which both
religiously and fearfully avoided.

He was po