within three
years, and then, turning to a horoscope of my own which he had
insisted upon drawing, he ran his yellow finger down to a point and
raising his mild, fanatic eyes to mine, remarked that at precisely
that time it was written that I should save life! At which I smiled
politely and said that I hoped I should save Margarita's and he
replied politely that as to that he did not know.

[Illustration: PERSONS BORN IN THAT MONTH OF THAT YEAR WILL NEVER BE
OTHERWISE THAN FAR OUT OF THE ORDINARY]

"You will remark," he added, "that persons born in that month of that
year will never be otherwise than far out of the ordinary. No. And
mostly artists: dramatic, musical--how should I know? You will remark,
also, that they will indubitably possess great influence over the
lives of others--and why not, with Uranus in that House as he is,
opposing the Moon? Ah, yes, her life is not yet lived, that one!"

But on the Saturday that found us waving from the pier I had not met
the good old Morel, and I was not thinking of the planets at all. It
had just come over me with dreadful distinctness that from now on my
life could never, never be the same. When I had first parted from
Roger and Margarita, the poetic strangeness of their surroundings, the
shock of all the discoveries I had just made, the relief of finding
our friendship secured on a new footing, nay, the very darkness of the
mild evening through which I was rowed away from them after that
exciting day, all combined to blunt my sense of loneliness, to invest
it with a gentle, dreamy pathos that made philosophy not too hard. It
was like leaving Ferdinand and Miranda on their Isle of Dreams, with
my blessing. But here were no Ferdinand and Miranda; only a handsome,
well-dressed bride and her handsome, well-dressed husband-lover,
sailing off for a brilliantly happy honeymoon and leaving me behind!
The excitement was gone, the past was over, the future seemed
dreadfully dull. My English blood, the blood of the small land-owner,
with occasional military generations, forbade my plunging into the
routine of business, in the traditional American fashion, even had the
need of it been more pressing. It may as well be admitted here and now
that I was not ambitious; I never (fortunately!) felt the need of
glory or high places and my simple fortune was to me wealth and to
spare--Margarita's pearl was the greatest extravagance of my life. Up
to this point I had never seriously realised