iness like some poor little
kid who has to wear irons on its legs."

"I WANT her.... Do you hear, Martin? I want her."

As if by a lightning flash he saw his car with himself and Miss
Grammont--Miss Seyffert had probably fallen out--traversing Europe and
Asia in headlong flight. To a sunlit beach in the South Seas....

His thoughts presently resumed as though these unmannerly and fantastic
interruptions had not occurred.

"We have to carry the whole affair on to a Higher Plane--and keep it
there. We two love one another--that has to be admitted now. (I ought
never to have touched her. I ought never to have thought of touching
her.) But we two are too high, our aims and work and obligations are too
high for any ordinary love making. That sort of thing would embarrass
us, would spoil everything.

"Spoil everything," he repeated, rather like a small boy who learns an
unpalatable lesson.

For a time Sir Richmond, exhausted by moral effort, lay staring at the
darkness.

"It has to be done. I believe I can carry her through with it if I can
carry myself. She's a finer thing than I am.... On the whole I am glad
it's only one more day. Belinda will be about.... Afterwards we can
write to each other.... If we can get over the next day it will be all
right. Then we can write about fuel and politics--and there won't be
her voice and her presence. We shall really SUBLIMATE.... First class
idea--sublimate!.... And I will go back to dear old Martin who's all
alone there and miserable; I'll be kind to her and play my part and tell
her her Carbuncle scar rather becomes her.... And in a little while I
shall be altogether in love with her again.

"Queer what a brute I've always been to Martin."

"Queer that Martin can come in a dream to me and take the upper hand
with me.

"Queer that NOW--I love Martin."

He thought still more profoundly. "By the time the Committee meets again
I shall have been tremendously refreshed."

He repeated:--"Put things on the Higher Plane and keep them there. Then
go back to Martin. And so to the work. That's it...."

Nothing so pacifies the mind as a clear-cut purpose. Sir Richmond fell
asleep during the fourth recapitulation of this programme.

Section 3

When Miss Grammont appeared at breakfast Sir Richmond saw at once that
she too had had a restless night. When she came into the little long
breakfast room of the inn with its brown screens and its neat white
tables it seemed to him that