keep his nose to the grindstone?
Come on!"

Paul's heart beat fast as they stepped into the street; faster still
as he glanced at Theo striding briskly beside him, head in air all
unconscious that he was faring toward a tryst far more in tune with
the season and the new life astir in his blood than his late abnormal
zeal in pursuit of promotion.

To Paul it seemed that the heavens themselves were in league with him.
Overhead, scattered ranks of chimneypots were bitten out of a sky
scarcely less blue and ardent than Italy's own. In every open space
young leaves flashed, golden-green, on soot-blackened branches of
chestnut, plane, and lime. And there were flowers everywhere--in
squares and window-boxes and parks; in florists' and milliners'
windows; in the baskets of flower-sellers and in women's hats. The
paper-boy--blackbird of the London streets--whistled a livelier stave.
Girls hurried past smiling at nothing in particular. They were glad to
be alive--that was all.

And Theo?

He too was glad to be alive, to be free, at last, from the conquering
shadow of memory and self-reproach. If penance were required of him,
surely that black year must suffice. Now the living claimed him; and
that claim could no longer be ignored. With a heart too full for
speech he walked beside his friend; and halting at last, on the steps
of Burlington House, he bared his head to the sunlight and drew a deep
breath of content.

"I vote we don't waste much of this divine morning on pictures, Paul,"
he said suddenly. "Why bother about them at all?"

Wyndham started visibly; but in less than a minute he was master of
himself and the situation.

"Well, as we're here, we may as well look in," he answered casually;
and without waiting further objection, turned to enter the building.

Desmond, following, laid a hand on his shoulder.

"Anything to please you, old man," said he smiling.

"God knows you've danced attendance on _my_ whims long enough!"

No sign of Honor in the cloistered coolness of the first room; only a
small group of people in earnest talk before one of the pictures, and
an artist, with stool and easel, making a conscientious copy of
another.

Desmond made a cursory tour of the walls and passed on into the second
room. Paul, increasingly anxious every moment, lagged behind and
consulted his watch. It was twenty-five minutes past eleven. Would she
never come?

The second room was empty, and there Desmond's aimless wa