d clearly by his personality and his exploitation of it
in his dress challenged the uniformity of the great city which was his
home. His dress was peculiar: an enormous black hat above a shock of
wispy fair hair, an ill-cut black coat, a cloak flung back over his
shoulders, a very high starched collar, abominable trousers, and long,
pointed French boots.

'But they have rebuilt the station!' he said, in a loud voice of almost
peevish disapproval.

'I remember reading about it, Carlo,' replied his companion. 'It fell
down and destroyed a theatre.'

'A bad omen,' said Charles Mann, 'I wish we had arrived at another
station.'

'I don't think it matters,' smiled Clara Day.

'I say it does,' snapped he. 'It is a mean little station. A London
station should be grand and spacious, the magnificent ante-room to a
royal city. I must get them to let me design a station.'

'They don't often fall down,' said Clara. 'I wish you would see to the
luggage.'

All the other passengers, French and English, had collected their
baggage and had hurried away, but Charles Mann was never in a hurry,
and he stayed scowling at the station which London had had the
effrontery to erect in his absence.

'In Germany and Russia,' he muttered, 'they understand that stations
are very important.'

'Do look after the luggage,' urged Clara, and very reluctantly Charles
Mann strolled along the platform, leaving his companion to the
admiration of the passengers arriving for the next out-going train.
She deserved it, for she was extremely handsome, almost pathetically
young for the knowledge written in her eyes and on her lips, and the
charming dress of purple and old red designed for her slim figure by
Charles drew the curious and rather scandalised eyes of the women. It
was in no fashion, but the perfection of its individuality raised it
above that tyranny, just as Clara's personality, in its compact force,
and delicious free movement, raised her above the conventionalism which
makes woman mere reflections of each other. When she moved, her
clothes were liquid with her vitality. When she stood still, they were
as monumental as herself. She and they were one.

She was happy. It had taken her nearly two years to bring Charles back
to London, where, as an Englishman, and, as she knew, one of the most
gifted Englishmen of his time, his work lay, and she felt certain that
here, in London, among other artists, it would be possible to extrica