shington, 'so I'm glad you are
pleased.'

'Come out,' she said, turning to the door. 'It always seems more
natural to talk to you on the lawn, and the bench is still there.'

He felt like an exile come home. Nothing was changed, except that
Margaret was gentler and seemed more glad to see him than formerly. He
wondered how that could be, seeing that he had made himself so very
ridiculous; for he was not experienced enough to know that a woman's
sense of humour is very different from that of a man she likes, when
she herself has been concerned in the circumstances that have made him
an object of ridicule to others. Then her face grows grave, her eyes
harden, and her head goes up. 'I cannot see that there is anything to
laugh at,' she says very coldly, to the disagreeable people who are
poking fun at the poor man. At these signs, the disagreeable people
generally desist and retire to whisper in a corner.

Lushington followed Margaret out. As they passed through the hall, she
took an old garden hat from the table and fastened it upon her head
with the pin that had been left stuck in it. It was done almost with a
single motion and without even glancing at the mirror which hung above
the hall table. Lushington watched her, but not as Logotheti would have
done, in artistic admiration of the graceful movement and perfect
balance. The Englishman, who called himself a realist, was admiring the
ideal qualities with which he had long ago invested the real woman. As
he watched her, his imagination clothed her handsome reality with a
semi-divine mantle of glory; for him she could never be anything but
Margaret Donne, let her call herself Cordova or anything else, let her
sing in _Rigoletto_ or in any other opera.

'It was nice of you to come,' she said, as they reached the bench near
the pond. 'I wanted to see you.'

'And I wanted you to see me,' Lushington laughed a little, remembering
how she had seen him the last time, after his fall, in very bad clothes
and much damaged, particularly as to his nose.

'You certainly look more civilised,' Margaret said.

'Did Logotheti tell you anything about what happened after you left
us?' asked Lushington, suddenly.

Margaret's face lost its expression for a moment. It was exactly as if,
while sitting in the full sunshine, a little cloud had blown across the
sun, taking the golden light out of her face.

'I have not seen Monsieur Logotheti since that day,' she said.

It was not nec