“Dear old boy,” he said. He was watching her with a little smile. “I’m glad he’s got some luck at last.” “Has Mam’selle ever seen a bull fight?” he asked her.!

“You feel you must beat that drum,” he suggested. “Beat it louder and louder and louder till all the world shall hear it.” The train drew in, and he found her a corner seat, and stood talking by the window, about common things.

A world without colour. No other colour to be seen beneath the sky but mud. The very buttons on the men’s coats painted to make them look like mud. Joan answered with a faint smile. “Oh, yes,” she said. “I didn’t forget that argument in case it hadn’t occurred to the Lord.” Joan sat next to him at the round dinner-table with the child the other side of him. She noticed that he ate as far as possible with his right hand—his hands were large, but smooth and well shaped—his left remaining under the cloth, beneath which the child’s right hand, when free, would likewise disappear. For a while the conversation consisted chiefly of anecdotes by Mr. Airlie. There were few public men and women about whom he did not know something to their disadvantage. Joan, listening, found herself repeating the experience of a night or two previous, when, during a performance of Hamlet, Niel Singleton, who was playing the grave-digger, had taken her behind the scenes. Hamlet, the King of Denmark and the Ghost were sharing a bottle of champagne in the Ghost’s dressing-room: it happened to be the Ghost’s birthday. On her return to the front of the house, her interest in the play was gone. It was absurd that it should be so; but the fact remained.