eyes brighter. She
had come to have tea with Rupert.

* * * * *

From the back room, waiting for her, rose the worshipped hero. He was,
as she had described him, very much like a Vandyke picture. He had
broad shoulders, and a thin waist, a pointed brown beard, regular
features, very large deep blue eyes, and an absurdly small mouth with
dazzling white teeth. If he was almost too well dressed--so well that
one turned round to look at his clothes--his distinguished manners and
_grand seigneur_ air carried it off. One saw it was not the
over-dressing of the _nouveau riche_, but the rather old-world dandyism
of a past generation. This was the odder as the year was 1913, and he
was exactly thirty. He always wore a buttonhole--to-day it was made of
violets to match his violet socks--and invariably carried a black ebony
stick, with an ivory handle.

With a quiet smile on his small mouth, he greeted and calmed the
agitated Madeline.

She dropped her bag on the floor before she sat down, and when Rupert
picked it up for her she dropped it again on a plate of cream cakes. He
then took it and moved it to his side of the table.

"I thought," he said smoothly, in a rather low, soothing voice, "that
you'd like these cakes better than toast."

She eagerly assured him that he was right, though it happened to be
quite untrue.

"And China tea, of _course_?"

"Oh, of _course_!" She disliked it particularly.

"And now, tell me, how has life been treating you?" he asked, as he
looked first at her, and then with more eager interest at his pointed
polished finger-nails.

Before she could answer, he went on:

"And that book on architecture that I sent you--tell me, have you read
it?"

"Every word."

This was perfectly true; she could have passed an examination in it.

"That's delightful. Then, now that you know something about it, I should
like very much to take you to Westminster Abbey or St. Paul's, or to see
one of those really beautiful old cathedrals. ... We must plan it out."

"Oh, please do. I revel in old things," she said, thinking the remark
would please him.

He arranged his buttonhole of Parma violets, then looked up at her,
smiling.

"Do you mean that at your age you really appreciate the past?"

"Indeed, I do."

"But you mustn't live for it, you know--not over-value it. You must
never forget that, after all, the great charm of the past is that it is
over. One must live fo