mph showed in his manner and a subdued excitement.

"We'll go to a place where we can have a private room," he said.
"Then--then we can talk things out."

So they went this time to the Rococo, in Germain Street, and up-stairs
to a landing upon which stood a bald-headed waiter with whiskers like a
French admiral and discretion beyond all limits in his manner. He seemed
to have expected them. He ushered them with an amiable flat hand into a
minute apartment with a little gas-stove, a silk crimson-covered sofa,
and a bright little table, gay with napery and hot-house flowers.

"Odd little room," said Ann Veronica, dimly apprehending that obtrusive
sofa.

"One can talk without undertones, so to speak," said Ramage.
"It's--private." He stood looking at the preparations before them with
an unusual preoccupation of manner, then roused himself to take her
jacket, a little awkwardly, and hand it to the waiter who hung it in the
corner of the room. It appeared he had already ordered dinner and
wine, and the whiskered waiter waved in his subordinate with the soup
forthwith.

"I'm going to talk of indifferent themes," said Ramage, a little
fussily, "until these interruptions of the service are over. Then--then
we shall be together.... How did you like Tristan?"

Ann Veronica paused the fraction of a second before her reply came.

"I thought much of it amazingly beautiful."

"Isn't it. And to think that man got it all out of the poorest little
love-story for a respectable titled lady! Have you read of it?"

"Never."

"It gives in a nutshell the miracle of art and the imagination. You get
this queer irascible musician quite impossibly and unfortunately in
love with a wealthy patroness, and then out of his brain comes THIS, a
tapestry of glorious music, setting out love to lovers, lovers who love
in spite of all that is wise and respectable and right."

Ann Veronica thought. She did not want to seem to shrink from
conversation, but all sorts of odd questions were running through her
mind. "I wonder why people in love are so defiant, so careless of other
considerations?"

"The very hares grow brave. I suppose because it IS the chief thing in
life." He stopped and said earnestly: "It is the chief thing in
life, and everything else goes down before it. Everything, my dear,
everything!... But we have got to talk upon indifferent themes until
we have done with this blond young gentleman from Bavaria...."

The dinner came to