the
fireplace he heard Priscilla's deep voice.

"Tell me, Mr Barbecue-Smith--you know all about science, I know--" A
deprecating noise came from Mr. Barbecue-Smith's chair. "This Einstein
theory. It seems to upset the whole starry universe. It makes me so
worried about my horoscopes. You see..."

Mary renewed her attack. "Which of the contemporary poets do you like
best?" she asked. Denis was filled with fury. Why couldn't this pest of
a girl leave him alone? He wanted to listen to the horrible music, to
watch them dancing--oh, with what grace, as though they had been made
for one another!--to savour his misery in peace. And she came and put
him through this absurd catechism! She was like "Mangold's Questions":
"What are the three diseases of wheat?"--"Which of the contemporary
poets do you like best?"

"Blight, Mildew, and Smut," he replied, with the laconism of one who is
absolutely certain of his own mind.

It was several hours before Denis managed to go to sleep that night.
Vague but agonising miseries possessed his mind. It was not only Anne
who made him miserable; he was wretched about himself, the future, life
in general, the universe. "This adolescence business," he repeated to
himself every now and then, "is horribly boring." But the fact that he
knew his disease did not help him to cure it.

After kicking all the clothes off the bed, he got up and sought relief
in composition. He wanted to imprison his nameless misery in words. At
the end of an hour, nine more or less complete lines emerged from among
the blots and scratchings.

"I do not know what I desire When summer nights are dark and still, When
the wind's many-voiced quire Sleeps among the muffled branches. I long
and know not what I will: And not a sound of life or laughter stanches
Time's black and silent flow. I do not know what I desire, I do not
know."

He read it through aloud; then threw the scribbled sheet into the
waste-paper basket and got into bed again. In a very few minutes he was
asleep.

CHAPTER XI.

Mr. Barbecue-Smith was gone. The motor had whirled him away to the
station; a faint smell of burning oil commemorated his recent departure.
A considerable detachment had come into the courtyard to speed him on
his way; and now they were walking back, round the side of the house,
towards the terrace and the garden. They walked in silence; nobody had
yet ventured to comment on the departed guest.

"Well?" said Anne at last, tu