of being seen by the floating grey
of eyes patient to gaze from their vast distance. Big drops fell from
Nataly's. Victor heard the French timepiece on the mantel-shelf, where a
familiar gilt Cupid swung for the seconds: his own purchase. The time of
day on the clock was wrong; the Cupid swung.

Nataly's mouth was taking breath of anguish at moments. More than a
minute of the terrible length of the period of torture must have gone:
two, if not three.

A quaver sounded. 'You have come.' The voice was articulate, thinner
than the telephonic, trans-Atlantic by deep-sea cable.

Victor answered: 'We have.'

Another minute must have gone in the silence. And when we get to five
minutes we are on the descent, rapidly counting our way out of the
house, into the fresh air, where we were half an hour back, among those
happy beasts in the pleasant Gardens!

Mrs. Burman's eyelids shut. 'I said you would come.'

Victor started to the fire-screen. 'Your sight requires protection.'

She dozed. 'And Natalia Dreighton!' she next said.

They were certainly now on the five minutes. Now for the slide downward
and outward! Nataly should never have been allowed to come.

'The white waistcoat!' struck his ears.

'Old customs with me, always!' he responded. 'The first of April,
always. White is a favourite. Pale blue, too. But I fear--I hope you
have not distressing nights? In my family we lay great stress on the
nights we pass. My cousins, the Miss Duvidneys, go so far as to judge of
the condition of health by the nightly record.'

'Your daughter was in their house.'

She knew everything!

'Very fond of my daughter--the ladies,' he remarked.

'I wish her well.'

'You are very kind.'

Mrs. Burman communed within or slept. 'Victor, Natalia, we will pray,'
she said.

Her trembling hands crossed their fingers. Nataly slipped to her knees.

The two women mutely praying, pulled Victor into the devotional hush. It
acted on him like the silent spell of service in a Church. He forgot
his estimate of the minutes, he formed a prayer, he refused to hear the
Cupid swinging, he droned a sound of sentences to deaden his ears. Ideas
of eternity rolled in semblance of enormous clouds. Death was a black
bird among them. The piano rang to Nataly's young voice and his. The
gold and white of the chairs welcomed a youth suddenly enrolled
among the wealthy by an enamoured old lady on his arm. Cupid
tick-ticked.--Poor soul! poor woman! How lit