ere a risk? Yes! Then I shan't play it. My mouth is too
beautiful.--But Mr. Sisson has not spoilt his mouth."

"Not yet," said Lilly. "Give him time."

"Is he also afraid--like Alcibiades?"

"Are you, Aaron?" said Lilly.

"What?"

"Afraid of spoiling your beauty by screwing your mouth to the flute?"

"I look a fool, do I, when I'm playing?" said Aaron.

"Only the least little bit in the world," said Lilly. "The way you
prance your head, you know, like a horse."

"Ah, well," said Aaron. "I've nothing to lose."

"And were you surprised, Lilly, to find your friend here?" asked Del
Torre.

"I ought to have been. But I wasn't really."

"Then you expected him?"

"No. It came naturally, though.--But why did you come, Aaron? What
exactly brought you?"

"Accident," said Aaron.

"Ah, no! No! There is no such thing as accident," said the Italian. "A
man is drawn by his fate, where he goes."

"You are right," said Argyle, who came now with the teapot. "A man is
drawn--or driven. Driven, I've found it. Ah, my dear fellow, what is
life but a search for a friend? A search for a friend--that sums it up."

"Or a lover," said the Marchese, grinning.

"Same thing. Same thing. My hair is white--but that is the sum of my
whole experience. The search for a friend." There was something at once
real and sentimental in Argyle's tone.

"And never finding?" said Lilly, laughing.

"Oh, what would you? Often finding. Often finding. And losing, of
course.--A life's history. Give me your glass. Miserable tea, but nobody
has sent me any from England--"

"And you will go on till you die, Argyle?" said Lilly. "Always seeking a
friend--and always a new one?"

"If I lose the friend I've got. Ah, my dear fellow, in that case I shall
go on seeking. I hope so, I assure you. Something will be very wrong
with me, if ever I sit friendless and make no search."

"But, Argyle, there is a time to leave off."

"To leave off what, to leave off what?"

"Having friends: or a friend, rather: or seeking to have one."

"Oh, no! Not at all, my friend. Not at all! Only death can make an end
of that, my friend. Only death. And I should say, not even death. Not
even death ends a man's search for a friend. That is my belief. You may
hang me for it, but I shall never alter."

"Nay," said Lilly. "There is a time to love, and a time to leave off
loving."

"All I can say to that is that my time to leave off hasn't come yet,"
said Argyle, with ob