d of it.

There was a little story in the book which one of the subordinate
characters told to a child, the distressing history of a small sugar
prince on a Twelfth-cake, who believed himself to be a fairy and was
taken tenderly away from a children's party by a little girl who, as
the prince supposed, would restore him somehow to his proper position
in Fairyland; instead of which, however, she took him home to an
ordinary nursery and ate him.

Mark was doubtful of the wisdom of retaining this story in the book at
all--it seemed to him out of place there--but as he had some scruples
about cutting it out, he allowed it to remain, a decision which was
not without after-effect upon his fortunes.

The title of the book underwent one more change, for Mr. Fladgate's
mind misgave him at the last moment as to his own first suggestion,
and it was finally settled that the book should be called 'Illusion,'
which suited Mark quite as well as anything else.

And so in due time Mark read, with a certain curious thrill, the
announcement that 'Illusion,' a romance by Cyril Ernstone, was 'now
ready at all libraries;' he sent no presentation copies, not even to
Trixie--he had thought of doing so, but when it came to the point he
could not.

It was early one Saturday afternoon in March, Mark had walked back by
a long round from the school to his lodgings through the parks, and
the flower-beds were gay with the lilac, yellow and white of crocus
and snowdrop, the smoke-blackened twigs were studded with tiny spikes
of tender green, and the air was warm and subtly aromatic with the
promise of spring--even in the muddy tainted streets the Lent-lilies
and narcissus flowers in the street-sellers' baskets gave touches of
passing sweetness to the breeze.

Mark felt a longing to get further away from the town and enjoy what
remained of the afternoon on higher ground and in purer air; he would
go up to Hampstead, he thought, and see the lights sweeping over the
rusty bracken on the heath, or walk down over Highgate Hill, and past
the quaint old brick houses with their high-trim laurel hedges and
their last century wrought-iron gateways and lamps in which the light
of other days no longer burns.

But he did not go to either place that afternoon, for when he ran up
to his rooms to change his hat and coat, he saw that on his table
which made him forget his purpose altogether. It was a packet inclosed
in a wrapper which bore the name of his pub