travel back to a certain glorious
morning in August which now seemed so remote and irrecoverable. At this
precise time he was waiting on the balcony of the Hotel de la Plage--the
sole hostelry of St. Luc-en-Port, the tiny Normandy watering-place upon
which, by some happy inspiration, he had lighted during a solitary
cycling tour--waiting until She should appear.

He could see the whole scene: the tiny cove, with the violet shadow of
the cliff sleeping on the green water; the swell of the waves lazily
lapping against the diving-board from which he had plunged half an hour
before; he remembered the long swim out to the buoy; the exhilarated
anticipation with which he had dressed and climbed the steep path to the
hotel terrace.

For was he not to pass the whole remainder of that blissful day in
Sylvia Futvoye's society? Were they not to cycle together (there were,
of course, others of the party--but they did not count), to cycle over
to Veulettes, to picnic there under the cliff, and ride back--always
together--in the sweet-scented dusk, over the slopes, between the
poplars or the cornfields glowing golden against a sky of warm purple?

Now he saw himself going round to the gravelled courtyard in front of
the hotel with a sudden dread of missing her. There was nothing there
but the little low cart, with its canvas tilt which was to convey
Professor Futvoye and his wife to the place of _rendezvous_.

There was Sylvia at last, distractingly fair and fresh in her cool pink
blouse and cream-coloured skirt; how gracious and friendly and generally
delightful she had been throughout that unforgettable day, which was
supreme amongst others only a little less perfect, and all now fled for
ever!

They had had drawbacks, it was true. Old Futvoye was perhaps the least
bit of a bore at times, with his interminable disquisitions on Egyptian
art and ancient Oriental character-writing, in which he seemed convinced
that Horace must feel a perfervid interest, as, indeed, he thought it
politic to affect. The Professor was a most learned archaeologist, and
positively bulged with information on his favourite subjects; but it is
just possible that Horace might have been less curious concerning the
distinction between Cuneiform and Aramaean or Kufic and Arabic
inscriptions if his informant had happened to be the father of anybody
else. However, such insincerities as these are but so many evidences of
sincerity.

So with self-tormenting in