rustling which sounded like a bird moving in ivy. Then she began to walk
softly up and down passing and repassing the seat. When she came up to
the seat for the fourth time in her walk, an ugly memory--she knew not
why--rose in her mind like a weed in a pool; it was the memory of a
story which she had long ago read and disliked. She had read it, she
remembered, in a railway train on a long journey. She had had a book,
something interesting and beautiful, with her, but she had finished
it. A passenger, who had got out of the carriage, had left behind him a
paper-covered volume of short stories. She had taken it up and had read
the first story, which now, after an interval of years, recurred to her
mind.

There was in the story a very commonplace business man, middle-aged,
quite unromantic and heavy, the sort of man who does not know what
"nerves" means, who thinks suggestion "damned nonsense," and psychical
research, occultism, and so forth, absurdities fit only to take up the
time of "a pack of silly women." This worthy person lived in the suburbs
of London in a semi-detached villa with a long piece of garden at the
back. On the other side of the fairly high garden wall was the garden of
his next-door neighbor, another business man of the usual suburban
type. Both men were busy gardeners in their spare time. Number one had
conceived the happy idea of putting up a tea-house in the angle of
the wall at the bottom of his lawn. Number two, having heard of this
achievement, and not wishing to be outdone, put up a very similar
tea-house in the corresponding angle on his side of the wall. The
two tea-houses stood therefore back to back with nothing but the wall
between them. Now, one warm summer evening Mr. Jenkins-Smith--Rosamund
could remember his name, though she had not thought of him for
years--had been busy watering his flowers and mowing his lawn. He had
worked really hard, and when the evening began to close in he thought
he would go into the tea-house and have a rest. On each side of the
curly-legged tea-table of unpolished wood stood a wicker arm-chair. Into
one of these chairs Mr. Jenkins-Smith sank with a sigh of content. Then
he lighted his pipe, stretched out his short legs, and, gazing at
his beautifully trimmed garden, prepared to enjoy a delicious hour of
well-earned repose. Things were going well with him; money was easy; his
health was good; when he sat down in the wicker chair and put his pipe
into his mout