ioned my one-day romance to anybody. Only very silly,
sentimental girls would put such an episode into words, and flatter
themselves by calling it a romance. But now that you and Jimmy Beckett
have both given your lives for the great cause, and are in the same
mysterious Beyond while I'm still down here at Crucifix Corner, I can
tell you the story. If you and he meet, it may make it easier for him to
forgive me the thing I have done.

When Brian and I were having that great summer holiday of ours, the year
before the war--one day we were in a delicious village near a cathedral
town on the Belgian border. A piece of luck had fallen in our way, like
a ripe apple tumbling off a tree. A rich Parisian and his wife came
motoring along, and stopped out of sheer curiosity to look at a picture
Brian was painting, under a white umbrella near the roadside. I was not
with him. I think I must have been in the garden of our quaint old hotel
by the canal side, writing letters--probably one to you; but the couple
took such a fancy to Brian's "impression," that they offered to buy it.
The bargain was struck, there and then. Two days later arrived a
telegram from Paris asking for another picture to "match" the first at
the same price. I advised Brian to choose out two or three sketches for
the people to select from, and carry them to Paris himself, rather than
trust the post. He went; and it was on the one day of his absence that
my romance happened.

Ours was a friendly little hotel, with a darling landlady, who was
almost as much interested in Brian and me as if she'd been our
foster-mother. The morning after Brian left, she came waddling out to
the adorable, earwiggy, rose-covered summer-house that I'd annexed as a
private sitting room. "Mademoiselle," she breathlessly announced, "there
is a young millionaire of a monsieur Anglais or Americain just arrived.
What a pity he should be wasted because Monsieur your brother has gone!
I am sure if he could but see one of the exquisite pictures he would
wish to buy all!"

"How do you know that the monsieur is a millionaire, and what makes you
think he would care about pictures?" I enquired.

"I know he is a millionaire because he has come in one of those grand
automobiles which only millionaires ever have. And I think he cares for
pictures because the first thing he did when he came into the hall was
to stare at the old prints on the wall. He praised the two best which
the real artists al