th at the sudden
revelation of this abandoned room's appeal. Here was the end of
Kathleen's maidenhood; here still lingered the allurement of her
presence; but Trimble could never see this last virginal abode, this
elusive shrine that Michael wished he could hire for sentimental
meditations. Along the corridor came the sound of a dustpan. He looked
round hastily for one souvenir of Kathleen, and perceived still moist
from her last quick ablution a piece of soap. He seized it quickly and
surrendered the room to the destructive personality of the housemaid.

"Well, dear," asked Mrs. Fane at lunch, "did your lady love give you
anything to commemorate your help? Darling Michael, you must have made a
most delicious knight-errant."

"Oh, no, she didn't give me anything," said Michael. "Why should she?"

Then he blushed, thinking of the soap that was even now enshrined in a
drawer and scenting his handkerchiefs and ties. He wondered if Alan
would understand the imperishable effluence from that slim cenotaph of
soap.

Chapter XIV: _Arabesque_

In the air of the Easter holidays that year there must have been
something unusually amorous even for April, for when Michael came back
to school he found that most of his friends and contemporaries had been
wounded by love's darts. Alan, to be sure, returned unscathed, but as he
had been resting in the comparatively cloistral seclusion of Cobble
Place, Michael did not count his whole heart much honour to anything
except his lack of opportunity. Everybody else had come back in
possession of girls; some even had acquired photographs. There was talk
of gloves and handkerchiefs, of flowers and fans, but nobody, as far as
Michael could cautiously ascertain, had thought of soap; and he
congratulated himself upon his relic. Also, apparently, all his friends
in their pursuit of Eastertide nymphs had been successful, and he began
to take credit to himself for being unlucky. His refusal (to this
already had come Kathleen's suddenly withdrawn hand) gave him a peculiar
interest, and those of his friends in whom he confided looked at him
with awe, and listened respectfully to his legend of despair.

Beneath the hawthorns on the golden afternoons and lingering topaz eves
of May, Michael would wait for Alan to finish his game of cricket, and
between lazily applauded strokes and catches he would tell the tale of
Kathleen to his fellows:

"I asked her to wait for me. Of course she was old