le not wanting. Do you
know I've been trying every night this week to drift into that show--just
to see if it were really that funny kid. I felt I ought to want to.
Why, even the fellows down in Angola had heard of her."

"She's probably well known in hotter places than that," Stonehouse
remarked.

"Yes--so I gathered. That's what made them so keen. They used to talk
of her--telling the wildest yarns, as though it did them good just to
think there was someone left alive who had so much go in them. Queer,
isn't it? Do you remember what a susceptible chap I used to be--that
poor little Connie--what's-her-name, whom I nearly scared out of her five
senses? Well, I've not cared a snap for any woman since then. And I
want to--I want to. I'd be so awfully happy if I could only care for
some nice girl and marry her. There was someone on the boat--such a
jolly good sort--and I think if I only could have cared she'd have cared
too. But I couldn't. I tried to work myself up--but it was like
scratching on a dead nerve--as though something vital had gone clean out
of me."

His voice cracked. Stonehouse, startled from his own reflections, became
aware that Cosgrave, whose apathy had hung about them like a fog, hiding
them from each other, was on the point of tears--of breaking down
helplessly in the crowded entrance. And instantly their old relationship
was re-born. He took him by the arm, sternly, authoritatively, as he had
always done when little Rufus Cosgrave had begun to flag or cry.

"You're coming home with me. When you're fit enough we'll do the show
opposite and make a night of it. We'll see what going to the devil can
do for you."

"Perhaps she'd make me laugh again," Cosgrave said, quavering
hysterically.

4

At any rate he had kept faith with himself. That theatre-night with
Frances Wilmot had been the first and last until now, and now assuredly
he did not care any more. But it made him remember. How intoxicated he
had been! He had walked home like a man translated into a strange
country--words had rushed past his ears in floods of music, and the
silver and black streets had been magic-built. Was it his youth, or had
Francey, dancing before him, her head lifted to catch unearthly
harmonies, thrown a spell over his judgment? She had gone, and he was
older--but he had a feeling that the disillusionment was not only in
himself. It was in the atmosphere about him--in the stale air, stamped