ver been in love."

After the meal, to which no one indeed had done justice, Hilaire
explained that he was going to write some letters.

The younger man looked at Olive. "Come with me," he said abruptly. "I
want to play to you."

"I want to hear you," she said as she rose from the table.

He followed her into the music-room and shut the door. "Well?"

She chose to misunderstand him. "It is charming. Just what a shrine of
sound should be."

The grand piano stood out from the grey-green background of the walls
beyond, there was a bronze statuette of Orpheus with his lute on a
twisted Byzantine column of white and gold mosaic, and a long
cushioned divan set on one side broke the long lines of light on the
polished floor.

"What are you going to play?" she asked.

"Nothing, at present," he said, smiling at her. "I want to talk to you
first. You are not frightened?"

"No." She sat on the divan and he stood before her, looking down into
her eyes.

"I think I had better try to tell you about my wife," he said. "May I
sit here? And may I smoke?"

"Yes." She drew her skirts aside to make room for him next to her. "I
want to hear you," she said again.

"Imagine me, a boy of twenty-two, convalescing in country lodgings
after an illness that seemed to have taken the marrow out of my bones.
Hilaire was in Japan, and I--a callow fledgling from the nest--was
very sick and sorry for myself. There were some people living in
rather a large house at the other end of the village who took notice
of me. They were the only ones, and I have thought since that my
acquaintance with them really did for me with everyone else. They were
not desirable--but--well, I was too young, and just then too
physically weak to avoid their more pressing attentions. Old Seldon
was one of those flushed, swollen men whose collars seem always to be
too small for them. He tried to be pleasant, but it was not a great
success. There were two daughters at home, and Gertrude was the
eldest. She had been married, and the man had died, leaving her
penniless. As you may suppose she had not come back to veal. I was
sorry for her then because she seemed a good sort, and she was very
kind to me; she was five years my senior--"

"Go on," Olive said.

"I used to go to the house nearly every evening. She sang well, and I
used to play her accompaniments, while the old man hung about the
sideboard. He never left us alone, and the younger girl, Violet, used
to m