ople who understand. So few do. I should
say you'd be sympathetic. You look sympathetic. You remind me of those
exquisite boys who in scarlet hose run delicately with beakers of wine
or stand in groups about the corners of old Florentine pictures."

Michael tried to look severe, and yet, after the Upper Fifth, even so
direct and embarrassing a compliment was slightly pleasant.

"Shall we go along? To-night the Hammersmith Road is full of mystery.
But, first, shall I not buy you a book--some exquisite book full of
strange perfumes and passionate courtly gestures? And so you are at
school? How wonderful to be at school! How Sicilian! Strange youth, you
should have been sung by Theocritus, or, better, been crowned with
myrtle by some wonderful unknown Greek, some perfect blossom of the
Anthology."

Michael laughed rather foolishly. There seemed nothing else to do.

"Won't you smoke? These Chian cigarettes in their diaphanous paper of
mildest mauve would suit your oddly remote, your curiously shy glance.
You had better not smoke so near to the savage confines of St. James'
School? How ascetic! How stringent! What book shall I buy for you, O
greatly to be envied dreamer of Sicilian dreams? Shall I buy you
Mademoiselle de Maupin, so that all her rococo soul may dance with
gilded limbs across your vision? Or shall I buy you A Rebours, and teach
you to live? And yet I think neither would suit you perfectly. So here
is a volume of Pater--Imaginary Portraits. You will like to read of
Denys l'Auxerrois. One day I myself will write an imaginary portrait of
you, wherein your secret, sidelong smile will reveal to the world the
whole art of youth."

"But really--thanks very much," stammered Michael, who was beginning to
suspect the stranger of madness--"it's awfully kind of you, but, really,
I think I'd rather not."

"Do not be proud," said Mr. Wilmot. "Pride is for the pure in heart, and
you are surely not pure in heart. Or are you? Are you indeed like one of
those wonderful white statues of antiquity, unaware of the soul with all
its maladies?"

In the end, so urgent was Mr. Wilmot, Michael accepted the volume of
Pater, and walked with the stranger through the foggy night. Somehow the
conversation was so destructive of all experience that, as Michael and
his new friend went by the school-gates and perceived beyond the vast
bulk of St. James' looming, Michael felt himself a stranger to it all,
as if he never again would with