nt almost depressed. He
was accustomed to his constant visitor. Surely he would miss her. She
smiled on him with her warm and very human cordiality for the last time,
and went away, with her companion, into the dimness towards the hill of
Drouva. Then the guardian pulled the great door. It closed with a final
sound. The key was turned. And Hermes was left untroubled in that world
where wings grow out of the sandals.

BOOK II -- ECHO

CHAPTER I

Robin, whose other name was Gabriel, arrived at the "little house," of
which Rosamund had spoken to Dion upon the hill of Drouva, early in the
following year, on the last night of February to be exact. For a long
time before his coming his future home had been subtly permeated by an
atmosphere of expectancy.

No. 5 Little Market Street was in Westminster, not far from the river
and the Houses of Parliament, yet in a street which looked almost
remote, and which was often very quiet although close to great arteries
of life. Dion sometimes thought it almost too dusky a setting for his
Rosamund, but it was she who had chosen it, and they had both become
quickly fond of it. It was a house with white paneling, graceful
ceilings and carved fireplaces, and a shallow staircase of oak. There
was a tiny but welcoming hall, and the landing on the first floor
suggested potpourri, chintz-covered settees, and little curtains of
chintz moved by a country wind coming through open windows. There were,
in fact, chintz-covered settees, and there was potpourri. Rosamund had
taken care about that; she had also taken care about many other little
things which most London housewives, perhaps, think unworthy of their
attention. Every day, for instance, she burnt lavender about the house,
and watched the sweet smoke in tiny wreaths curling up from the small
shovel, as she gently moved it to and fro, with a half smile of what she
called "rustic satisfaction." She laid lavender in the cupboards and in
the chests of drawers, and, when she bought flowers, chose by preference
cottage garden flowers, if she could get them, sweet williams, pansies,
pinks, wallflowers, white violets, stocks, Canterbury bells. Sometimes
she came home with wild flowers, and had once given a little dinner
with foxgloves for a table decoration. An orchid, a gardenia, even a
hyacinth, was never to be seen in the little house. Rosamund confessed
that hyacinths had a lovely name, and that they suggested spring, but
she a