ity in possession.
If Rosamund were to be cut off from him even to-night he had gained
enormously by the possession of her. He knew what woman can be, and
without disappointment; for he did not choose to reckon up those small,
almost impalpable things which, like passing shadows, had now and
then brought a faint obscurity into his life with Rosamund, as
disappointments. They came, perhaps, from himself. And what where they?
He looked out over the long stretch of unruffled water, filmed over with
ice near the shores, and saw a tiny dark object traveling through it
with self-possession and an air of purpose beneath the constellations;
some aquatic bird up to something, heedless of the approaching midnight
and the Great Bear.

"Look at that little beggar!" said Daventry. "And we don't know so very
much more about it all than he does. I expect he's a Muscovy duck, or
drake, if you're a pedant about genders."

"He's evidently full of purpose."

"Out in the middle of the ice-cold Serpentine. He's only a speck now,
like our world in space. Now I can't see him."

"I can."

"You're longer-sighted than I am. But, Dion, I'm seeing a longish way
to-night, farther than I've seen before. Love's a great business,
the greatest business in life. Ambition, and greed, and vanity, and
altruism, and even fanaticism, must give place when it's on hand, when
it harnesses its winged horses to a man's car and swings him away to the
stars."

"Ask her. I think she'll have you."

A star fell through the frosty clear sky. Dion remembered the falling
star above Drouva. This time he was swift with a wish, but it was not a
wish for his friend.

They reached Hyde Park Corner just before midnight and parted there.
Dion hailed a hansom, but Daventry declared with determination that he
was going to walk all the way home to Phillimore Gardens.

"To get up my case, to arrange things mentally," he explained. "Big
brains always work best at night. All the great lawyers toil when
the stars are out. Why should I be an exception? I dedicate myself to
Cynthia Clarke. She will have my undivided attention and all my deepest
solicitude."

"I know why."

"No, no."

He put one hand on the apron which Dion had already closed.

"No, really, you're wrong. I am deeply interested in Mrs. Clarke because
she is what she is. I want her to win because I'm convinced she's
innocent. Will you come to Mrs. Chetwinde's next Sunday and meet her?"

"Yes, unless Ros