ood behaviour."

"Are you being good?" said Sylvia.

Guy closed one eye. "Oh, I'm a positive saint to-day. I've
promised--almost--never to be naughty again. Do you know Burke
slept on the floor in here last night? Decent of him, wasn't it?"

Sylvia glanced swiftly round. "Did he? How uncomfortable for him!
He mustn't do that again,"

"He didn't notice," Guy assured her. "He was much too pleased with
himself. I rather like him for that, you know. He has a wonderful
faculty for--what shall we call it?--mental detachment? Or, is it
physical? Anyway, he knows how to enjoy his emotions, whatever
they are, and he doesn't let any little personal discomfort stand
in his way."

He ended with a careless laugh from which all bitterness was
absent, and after a little pause Sylvia sat down by his side. His
whole attitude amazed her this morning. Some magic had been at
work. The fretful misery of the past few weeks had passed like a
cloud. This was her own Guy come back to her, clean, sane, with
the boyish humour that she had always loved in him, and the old
quick light of understanding and sympathy in his eyes.

He watched her with a smile. "Aren't you going to light up, too?
Come, you'd better. It'll tone you up,"

She looked back at him. "Had you better smoke?" she said. "Won't
it start your cough?"

He lifted an imperious hand. "It won't kill me if it does. Why
are you looking at me like that?"

"Like what?" she said.

"As if I'd come back from the dead." He frowned at her abruptly
though his eyes still smiled. "Don't!" he said.

She smiled in answer, and picked up the matchbox. It was of silver
and bore his initials.

"Yes," Guy said, "I've taken great care of it, haven't I? It's
been my mascot all these years."

She took out a match and struck it without speaking. There was
something poignant in her silence. She was standing again in the
wintry dark of her father's park, pressed close to Guy's heart, and
begging him brokenly to use that little parting gift of hers with
thoughts of her when more than half the world lay between them.
Guy's cigarette was in his mouth. She stooped forward to light it.
Her hand was trembling. In a moment he reached up, patted it
lightly, and took the match from her fingers. The action said more
than words. It was as if he had gently turned a page in the book
of life, and bade her not to look back.

"Now don't you bother about me!" he said. "I'm bei