esterday, have a bond. I can't help the
conviction that you're the hundred-thousandth person. You have
understanding eyes. If I were a young man--And yet it's not just that;
it's something a bit rarer. Moreover, they tell me there's a chap back
in America."

"Yes," I owned. "There is a chap." And I persisted: "I'm to have a
fairy-story?"

The black-lashed gaze narrowed as it traveled across the velvet turf and
the tall roses, down the path of the quiet river. He had a fine head,
thick-thatched and grizzled, not white; his nose was of the straight,
short English type, slightly chopped up at the end--a good-looking nose;
his mouth was wide and not chiseled, yet sensitive as well as strong;
the jaw was powerful and the chin square with a marked dimple in it;
there was also color, the claret and honey of English tanned
complexions. Of course his eyes, with the exaggeratedly thick and long
black lashes, were the wonderful part of him, but there is no
describing the eyes. It was the look from them, probably, which made
General Cochrane's face remarkable. I suppose it was partly that
compelling look which had brought about his career. He was six feet
four, lean and military, full of presence, altogether a conspicuously
beautiful old lion in a land where every third man is beautiful.

"What are you looking munitions-of-war at, General, down the innocent
little Thames River? You must be seeing around corners, past Wargrave,
as far as Henley."

"I didn't see the Thames River," he shot at me in his masterful way. "I
was looking at things past, and people dead and gone. We ancients do
that. I saw London streets and crowds; I read the posters which told
that Kitchener was drowned at sea, and then I saw, a year later, England
in panic; I saw an almighty meeting in Trafalgar Square and I heard
speeches which burned my ears--men urging Englishmen to surrender
England and make terms with the Huns. Good God!" His fist came down on
the rattling little iron table.

"My blood boils now when I remember. Child," he demanded, "I can't see
why your alluring ways should have set me talking. Fancy, I've never
told this tale but twice, and I'm holding forth to a little alien whom I
haven't known two days, a young ne'er-do-well not born till forty years
after the tale happened!"

"What difference does that make?" I asked. "Age means nothing to real
people. And we've known each other since--since we hunted pterodactyls
together, pre-historic