nd
young in his neighbourhood, but as things lovely and young drifted from
him with the years; and as the business took deeper and deeper hold on
his attention, she had become a mere floating figment, a live fluttering
spark in the very core of all his imaginings.

She had been beside him, a pleasant, indeterminate presence in the long
journey she travelled from the printed page to the accompanying click of
Ellen's needles. Sometimes at the opera she took on a gossamer tint from
the singer's face, and longer ago than he could afford operas, he had
understood that all the beauty of the world, bursting apple buds, the
great curve of the surf that set the beaches trembling, derived somehow
its pertinence from her. Now at the age of forty he had ceased to think
very much about the Lovely Lady.

It occurred to him that this might have something to do with his failure
to get a new relation to life out of his new wealth.

It had struck Peter rather forlornly during the past few years that
there was little use he could put money to, except to make more money.
He could see by turning his head to the room behind him how little there
was there of what he had fancied once riches would bring him. The lines
of the room were good, the amount of the annual rent assured that to
him, the furniture was good and the rugs expensive. Ellen believed that
money in rugs was a good investment, particularly if the colours were
strong and would stand fading. There were some choice things here and
there, a vase and pictures which Peter had chosen for himself, though he
was aware, as he took them in under the dull glow, that Ellen had
arranged them in strict reference to the size of the frames, and that
the whole effect failed of satisfaction. He thought his life might be
somewhat like that room, full of good things but lacking the touch that
should set them in fruitful order. It stole over him as persuasively as
the warm growing smell of the park below him that the something missed
might be the touch and presence of the Lovely Lady.

II

It was the late end of the afternoon when Peter stepped off the train at
the Lessing's station and into the trap that was waiting for him. He
learned from Lessing's man that the family had been kept by the tennis
match at Maplemont and he was to come on to the house at his leisure.
That being the case, Peter took the reins himself and made a long detour
through the dust-smelling country roads, so that