' said the Sphinx, 'to think that for every two of
those moving double-lights, which we know to be the eyes of hansoms, but
which seem up here nothing but gold dots in a very barbaric pattern of
black and gold, there are two human beings, no doubt at this time of
night two lovers, throbbing with the joy of life, and dreaming, heaven
knows what dreams!'

'Yes,' I rejoined;' and to them I'm afraid we are even more impersonal.
From their little Piccadilly coracles our watch-tower in the skies is
merely a radiant facade of glowing windows, and no one of all who glide
by realises that the spirited illumination is every bit due to your
eyes. You have but to close them, and every one will be asking what has
gone wrong with the electric light.'

A little nonsense is a great healer of the heart, and by means of such
nonsense as this we grew merry again. And anon we grew sentimental and
poetic, but--thank heaven! we were no longer tragic.

Presently I had news for the Sphinx. 'The rose-tree that grows in the
garden of my mind,' I said, 'desires to blossom.'

'May it blossom indeed,' she replied; 'for it has been flowerless all
this long evening; and bring me a rose fresh with all the dews of
inspiration--no florist's flower, wired and artificially scented, no
bloom of yesterday's hard-driven brains.'

'I was only thinking,' I said, '_a propos_ of nightingales and roses,
that though all the world has heard the song of the nightingale to the
rose, only the nightingale has heard the answer of the rose. You know
what I mean?'

'Know what you mean! Of course, that's always easy enough,' retorted the
Sphinx, who knows well how to be hard on me.

'I'm so glad,' I ventured to thrust back; 'for lucidity is the first
success of expression: to make others see clearly what we ourselves are
struggling to see, believe with all their hearts what we are just daring
to hope, is--well, the religion of a literary man!'

'Yes! it's a pretty idea,' said the Sphinx, once more pressing the rose
of my thought to her brain; 'and indeed it's more than pretty ...'

'Thank you!' I said humbly.

'Yes, it's _true_--and many a humble little rose will thank you for it.
For, your nightingale is a self-advertising bird. He never sings a song
without an eye on the critics, sitting up there in their stalls among
the stars. He never, or seldom, sings a song for pure love, just
because he must sing it or die. Indeed, he has a great fear of death,
unless--