ly from me." Vanderbank had pushed him to a seat again and
was casting about for cigarettes. "Be quiet and smoke, and I'll tell
you."

Mitchy, on the sofa, received with meditation a light. "Will she
understand? She has everything in the world but one," he added. "But
that's half."

Vanderbank, before him, lighted for himself. "What is it?"

"A sense of humour."

"Oh yes, she's serious."

Mitchy smoked a little. "She's tragic."

His friend, at the fire, watched a moment the empty portion of the other
room, then walked across to give the door a light push that all but
closed it. "It's rather odd," he remarked as he came back--"that's quite
what I just said to him. But he won't treat her to comedy."

III

"Is it the shock of the resemblance to her grandmother?" Vanderbank had
asked of Mr. Longdon on rejoining him in his retreat. This victim of
memory, with his back turned, was gazing out of the window, and when in
answer he showed his face there were tears in his eyes. His answer
in fact was just these tears, the significance of which Vanderbank
immediately recognised. "It's still greater then than you gathered from
her photograph?"

"It's the most extraordinary thing in the world. I'm too absurd to be so
upset"--Mr. Longdon smiled through his tears--"but if you had known
Lady Julia you'd understand. It's SHE again, as I first knew her, to the
life; and not only in feature, in stature, in colour, in movement, but
in every bodily mark and sign, in every look of the eyes above all--oh
to a degree!--in the sound, in the charm of the voice." He spoke low and
confidentially, but with an intensity that now relieved him--he was as
restless as with a discovery. He moved about as with a sacred awe--he
might a few steps away have been in the very presence. "She's ALL Lady
Julia. There isn't a touch of her mother. It's unique--an absolute
revival. I see nothing of her father, I see nothing of any one else.
Isn't it thought wonderful by every one?" he went on. "Why didn't you
tell me?"

"To have prepared you a little?"--Vanderbank felt almost guilty. "I
see--I should have liked to make more of it; though," he added all
lucidly, "I might so, by putting you on your guard, have caused myself
to lose what, if you'll allow me to say it, strikes me as one of the
most touching tributes I've ever seen rendered to a woman. In fact,
however, how could I know? I never saw Lady Julia, and you had in
advance all the evidence I c