is settled now irrevocably.
You will be a writer, and a famous writer, and one reason why I have
procured all these invitations for you, and encouraged you to accept
them, has been because I want you to grasp life as a whole. You think
that you are idling now. You are not. Every new experience you gain is
of value to you. Hitherto you have only seen life through dun-coloured
spectacles. I want you also to understand the other side. It is your
business to know and grasp it from all points. Can't you see that I
have found it a pleasure to help you to see that side of which you were
ignorant?"

"That is all very true," he answered, "only I have already had more
opportunities than most men. Don't you think yourself that it is almost
time I buckled to and started life more seriously?"

"It is for you to say," she answered quietly. "You know better than I.
If you have work in your brain and you are weary of other things--well,
_au revoir_, and good luck to you. Only you will come and see me now
and then, and tell me how you are getting on, for I shall be a little
lonely just at first."

She looked at him with eyes a trifle dim, and Douglas felt his heart
beat thickly, and the memory of Rice's passionate words seemed suddenly
weak.

"I shall come and see you always," he said, "as often as you would have
me come. You know that."

She shook her head as though but half convinced. Then she rose to her
feet.

"There is just one thing I should like to ask you," she said. "This new
resolution of yours--did you come by it alone, or has any one been
advising you?"

Douglas hesitated.

"I have been talking to a man," he admitted, "who certainly seemed to
think that I was neglecting my work."

"Will you tell me who it was?"

Douglas looked into her face and became suddenly grave. The eyes were
narrower and brighter, a glint of white teeth showed through the
momentarily parted lips. A tiny spot of colour burned in her
cheeks--something of the wild animal seemed suddenly to have leaped up
in her. Yet how beautiful she was!

"I cannot do that," he faltered.

"Then it was some one who spoke to you of me," she continued calmly.
"You need not trouble to contradict me. Hadn't you better hurry away
before I have the chance to do you any harm? There is one young man I
know, of a melodramatic turn of mind, who persists in looking upon me as
a sort of siren, calling my victims on to the rocks. I expect that is
the person with who