ertain a
mood to do more than gulp down his coffee at breakfast, and the raw air
had roused a craving for some sort of sustenance--a desire for
stimulation rather than a keen hunger. He swallowed a glass of the wine,
then began to nibble a sandwich slowly; but his mind was still in his
work. He half-knew that the great folding door at the bottom of the room
had opened, that somebody had entered. But it was as in a dream, and he
did not look up. He considered his results, then poured more wine, and
was in the act of raising it to his lips. God! what was this gracious,
willowy figure, with the wonderful sheen on the fresh hair, and the
girlish rounded cheeks! She was smiling at him, her eyes strangely
alight under their long, soft lashes, her lips half parted; she was
advancing towards him with outstretched hand. He put back the glass on
the table and rose hastily, holding his sketch suspended from one hand;
but his wits left him and he stared as at a ghost.

"Lady Betty!" he stammered.

"I am not an apparition," she reassured him; "but only a simple
flesh-and-blood creature. Won't you put down your picture?" She smiled
again at his embarrassment.

He laughed, and stood the sketch on a chair.

"Your presence certainly startled me," he confessed. "I had an idea you
were thousands of miles away." They took hands--a good, comrade-like
clasp. "Fortunately the idea was erroneous."

"Fortunately," she echoed, laughingly capping his gallantry.

"Oh, but how stupid I am! Forgive me!" He almost swept the hat from his
head. "You see how I was scared; how ill prepared to cope with
apparitions."

She laughed again. "You are to keep your hat on," she commanded. "My
presence is easily accounted for; out of sheer restlessness of spirit I
thought I should like to try London again--I had shunned it like the
plague for ever so long. As all the nice little hotels were full, I
descended on my father here, and practically appropriated this room."

"I fear I'm an intruder," he stammered.

"You had my permission; it was obtained in due form. Only I insisted my
name was to be held back. I wanted to play the apparition, and my father
entered into the whim of the thing. It seems like old times again."

Wyndham tried to transport himself back along the years. "I wonder
whether there's anything better in life than to repeat the best moments
of the past," he said pensively; "that is, if we can catch them with all
the original magic in the