ne's best to free one's mind of cant--and I dare
say clearing some excellent stuff out with the rubbish. One consequence
is that I don't think, however foolhardy it may be to say so, I don't
think I care a groat for any opinion as human as my own, good or bad. My
sister's a million times a better woman than I am a man. What possibly
could there be, then, for me to say?' He turned with a nervous smile.
'Why should it be good-bye?'

Lawford glanced involuntarily towards the door that stood in shadow
duskily ajar. 'Well,' he said, 'we have talked, and we think it must
be that, until, at least,' he smiled faintly, 'I can come as quietly as
your old ghost you told me of; and in that case it may not be so very
long to wait.'

Their eyes met fleetingly across the still, listening room. 'The more
I think of it,' Lawford pushed slowly on, 'the less I understand the
frantic purposelessness of all that has happened to me. Until I
went down, as you said, "a godsend of a little Miss Muffet," and the
inconceivable farce came off, I was fairly happy, fairly contented to
dance my little wooden dance and wait till the showman should put me
down into his box again. And now--well, here I am. The whole thing has
gone by and scarcely left a trace of its visit. Here I am for all my
friends to swear to; and yet, Herbert, if you'll forgive me troubling
you with this stuff about myself, not a single belief, or thought, or
desire remains unchanged. You will remember all that, I hope. It's not,
of course, the ghost of an apology, only the mere facts.'

Herbert rose and paced slowly across to the window. 'The longer I live,
Lawford, the more I curse this futile gift of speech. Here am I, wanting
to tell you, to say out frankly what, if mind could appeal direct to
mind, would be merely as the wind passing through the leaves of a tree
with just one--one multitudinous rustle, but which, if I tried to
put into words--well, daybreak would find us still groping on....' He
turned; a peculiar wry smile on his face. 'It's a dumb world: but there
we are. And some day you'll come again.'

'Well,' said Lawford, as if with an almost hopeless effort to turn
thought into such primitive speech, 'that's where we stand, then.' He
got up suddenly like a man awakened in the midst of unforeseen danger,
'Where is your sister?' he cried, looking into the shadow. And as if in
actual answer to his entreaty, they heard the clinking of the cups on
the little, old, green