n we've got Him,
and when we've got Her--creators----" He paused before the immensity of
his vision of Them. "What business have we----"

"To go putting one and one together so as to make two?"

"Well--it doesn't seem quite reverent."

"You think them gods, then, your creators?"

"I think I--worship them."

"Ah, Mr. Nicholson, _you're_ adorable. And I'm atrocious."

"I believe," said Nicky, "tea is in the garden."

"Let us go into the garden," said Miss Bickersteth.

And they went.

Tea was served in a green recess shut in from the lawn by high yew
hedges. Nicky at his tea-table was more charming than ever, surrounded
by old silver and fine linen, making tea delicately, and pouring it into
fragile cups and offering it, doing everything with an almost feminine
dexterity and grace.

After tea the group scattered and rearranged itself. In Nicky's perfect
garden, a garden of smooth grass plots and clipped yew-trees, of lupins
and larkspurs, of roses that would have been riotous but for the
restraining spirit of the place; in a green alley between lawn and
orchard, Mr. Hugh Brodrick found himself with Miss Holland, and alone.
Very quietly, very persistently, with eyes intent, he had watched for
and secured this moment.

"You don't know," he was saying, "how I've wanted to meet you, and how
hard I've worked for it."

"Was it so hard?"

"Hard isn't the word for it. If you knew the things I've done----" He
spoke in his low, even voice, saying eager and impulsive things without
a sign of eagerness or impulse.

"What things?"

"Mean things, base things. Going on my knees to people I didn't know,
grovelling for an introduction."

"I'm sorry. It sounds awful."

"It was. I've been on the point of meeting you a score of times, and
there's always been some horrid fatality. Either you'd gone when I
arrived, or I had to go before you arrived. I believe I've seen
you--once."

"I don't remember."

"At Miss Bickersteth's. You were coming out as I was going in." He
looked at his watch. "And _now_ I ought to be catching a train."

"Don't catch it."

"I shan't. For I've got to tell you how much I admire your work. I'm not
going to ask how you do it, for I don't suppose you know yourself."

"I don't."

"I'm not even going to ask myself. I simply accept the miracle."

"If it's miracles you want, look at George Tanqueray."

He said nothing. And now she thought of it, he had not looked at George
Tanqueray. He ha