ad all been about. Phyllis was not glum,
nor did she mumble. She was able to describe scene after scene, and more
than once she sprang from her seat, carried away by her own powers of
description, and began to act the bits that had impressed her--bits the
force of which could only be understood when described with gestures and
pretty posturing.

Her father thought he had never seen anything so pretty in his life.
(What a girl she was, to be sure, to have so easily recovered from the
effects of that terrible ordeal through which she had passed--having to
dismiss at a moment's notice the man whom she had promised to marry!)
He had certainly never seen anything so fascinating as her pretty
posturing, with the electric lights gleaming over her white neck with
its gracious curves, and her firm white arms from which her gloves had
been stripped.

It had been his intention to describe to her a scene which had taken
place in the House of Commons that night--a scene of Celt and Saxon
mingling in wild turmoil over a question of neglected duty on the part
of a Government official: not the one who was subsequently decorated
by the sovereign a few days after his neglect of duty had placed the
country in jeopardy, and had precipitated the downfall of the ministry
and the annihilation of his party as a political factor; not this
man, but another, who had referred to Trafalgar Square as the private
thoroughfare of the crown. The scene had been an animated one, and Mr.
Ayrton had hoped to derive a good deal of pleasure from describing it to
his daughter; but when he had listened to her, and watched her for a few
minutes, he came to the conclusion that it would be absurd for him to
make an effort to compete with her. What was his wretched little story
of Parliamentary squalor compared with these psychological subtleties
which had interested his daughter all the evening?

He listened to and watched that lovely thing, overflowing with the
animation that comes from a quick intelligence--a keen appreciation of
the intelligence of the great artists who had interpreted a story which
thrilled the imagination of generation after generation, and he felt
that Parliament was a paltry thing. Parliament--what was Parliament? The
wrangle of political parties over a paltry issue. It had no real life
in it; it had nothing of the fullness and breadth of the matters that
interested such people as had minds--imagination.

"You are tired," she cried at