the passion and feeling of the thing! I envy you for being
able to feel you have produced it all.' ('That ought to fetch him,' he
thought.)

'Oh, as for that,' said Mark with a shrug, and left his remark
unfinished, but without, as the other noticed, betraying any
particular discomposure.

'Do you remember, now,' pursued Caffyn, 'how the central idea first
occurred to you?'

But here again he drew a blank, for Mark had long ago found it
expedient to concoct a circumstantial account of how and when the
central idea had first occurred to him.

'Well, I'll tell you,' he said. 'It shows how oddly these things are
brought about. I was walking down Palace Gardens one afternoon....'
and he told the history of the conception of 'Illusion' in his best
manner, until Caffyn raged internally.

'You brazen humbug!' he thought; 'to sit there and tell that string of
lies to _me_!' When it was finished he remarked, 'Well, that's very
interesting; and I have your permission to tell that again, eh?'

'Certainly, my dear fellow,' said Mark, with a wave of his hand. His
cigar was a really excellent one, and he thought he would try another
presently.

('We must try him again,' thought Caffyn; 'he's deeper than I gave him
credit for being.')

'I'll tell you an odd criticism I heard the other day. I was talking
to little Mrs. Bismuth--you know Mrs. Bismuth by name? Some fellow has
just taken the "Charivari" for her. Well, she goes in for letters a
little as well as the drama, reads no end of light literature since
she gave up tights for drawing-room comedy, and she would have it that
she seemed to recognise two distinct styles in the book, as if two
pens had been at work on it.'

('Now I may find out if that really was the case after all,' he was
thinking.) 'I thought you'd be amused with that,' he added, after a
pause. Mark really did seem amused; he laughed a little.

'Mrs. Bismuth is a charming actress,' he said, 'but she'd better read
either a little more or a little less light literature before she goes
in for tracing differences in style. You can tell her, with my
compliments, that a good many pens were at work on it, but only one
brain. Where is it your matches live?'

'I can't draw him,' thought Caffyn. 'What an actor the fellow is! And
yet, if it was all aboveboard, he wouldn't have said that! and I've
got Holroyd's handwriting, which is pretty strong evidence against
him. But I want more, and I'll have it.'

He stro