e a young tiger about
the room. "I can't stand it. I've gone mad about her. She has got into
my blood somehow. I think about her all day long, and I can't sleep at
night. I would give up any mortal thing on earth for her. She is the one
woman in the world for me! She's the dearest, sweetest, tenderest, most
beautiful creature God ever made!"

"And you honour and respect her--just as you would honour and respect
Maisie?" I asked quietly.

"Of course I do!" he flashed. "Don't I tell you that you know nothing
whatever about her? She is the dearest, sweetest----" etc., etc. And he
continued to trumpet forth the Olympian qualities of the Syren and his
own fervent adoration. I was the only being to whom he had opened his
heart, and, the floodgates being set free, the torrent burst forth in
this tempestuous and incoherent manner. I let him go on, for I thought
it did him good; but his rhapsody added very little to my information.

The lady who had "houp-la'd" her way from Dublin to Yokohama was the
spotless queen of beauty, and Dale was frenziedly, idiotically in love
with her. That was all I could gather. When he had finished, which he
did somewhat abruptly, he threw himself into a chair and took out his
cigarette-case with shaky fingers.

"There. I suppose I've made a damn-fool exhibition of myself," he said,
defiantly. "What have you got to say about it?"

"Precisely," I replied, "what I said before. I'll repeat it, if you
like."

Indeed, what more was there to say for the present about the lunatic
business? I had come to the end of my arguments.

He reflected for a moment, then rose and came over to the fireplace.

"Look here, Simon, you must let me go my own way in this. In matters of
politics and worldly wisdom and social affairs and honourable dealing
and all that sort of thing I would follow you blindly. You're my chief,
and a kind of elder brother as well. I would do any mortal thing for
you. You know that. But you've no right to try to guide me in this
matter. You know no more about it than my mother. You've had no
experience. You've never let yourself go about a woman in your life.
Lord of Heaven, man, you have never begun to know what it means!"

Oh, dear me! Here was the situation as old as the return of the Prodigal
or the desertion of the trusting village maiden, or any other cliche in
the melodrama of real life. "You are making a fool of yourself," says
Mentor. "Ah," shrieks Telemachus, "but you never