now and then, in
an ill-natured howl.

Inside the refuge of No. 8 Chelmsford Gardens a fire threw its merry
warmth over the large music-room, and did its best to offset the
tearful misery of the November night.

Conversation had dwindled in energy with the closing hour of the
affair, and seizing an auspicious moment, Norton Pyford had reached the
piano, and for twenty minutes demonstrated the close relation of the
chord of C Minor to the colour brown. Modernist music, acting on
unusual souls as classical music on ordinary souls, stimulated the
flagging conversational powers of the guests, and he was soon
surrounded by a gesticulating group of dissenting or condoning critics.

Selwyn noticed that Elise Durwent had not left her seat by the fire,
and absenting himself from the harmonic debate, he took a chair by hers.

'You are pensive, Miss Durwent,' he said.

She smiled, with a slight suggestion of weariness, though her eyes had
a softness he had not seen in them before.

'I am very dull company to-night,' she said, 'but ever since I was a
child, rain beating against the windows has always made me dreamy. I
suppose I am old-fashioned, but it is sweeter music to me than Mr.
Pyford's new harmonies.'

He laughed, and leaning towards the fire, rubbed his hands
meditatively. 'You must have found our talk wearisome at dinner,' he
said.

'No,' she answered, 'it was not so bad as usual. You introduced a note
of sincerity that had all the effect of a novelty.'

Her mannerism of swift and disjointed speech, which broke all her
sentences into rapidly uttered phrases, again annoyed him. Though her
voice was refined, it seemed to be acting at the behest of a whip-like
brain, and she spoke as if desirous rather of provoking a retort than
of establishing any sense of compatibility. Yet she was
feminine--gloriously, delicately feminine. The finely moulded arms and
the gracefulness of body, indicated rather than revealed beneath her
blue gown, intrigued the eye and the senses, just as the swiftly spoken
words challenged the brain and infused exasperation in the very midst
of admiration. The complicated elements of the girl offered a peculiar
fascination to the eternal instinct of study possessed by the young
American author.

'Miss Durwent,' he said, 'if I was sincere to-night, it was because you
encouraged me to be so.'

'But I said nothing.'

'Nevertheless, you were the inspiration.'

'I never knew a girl coul