le house not far from St. Petersburg Place on the north side
of the Park, Mullion House he calls it. He's got a studio there which
opens into a pocket-handkerchief of a garden. He keeps two women
servants."

"Any dogs?" said Charmian.

"No."

"Cats?"

"Not that I know of."

"I don't feel as if I should like him. Does he compose at the piano?"

"No, away from it."

"He's unsympathetic. Cropped hair watered down, humdrum neckties,
composing away from the piano, no animals--it's all against me except
the little house."

"Because you take the wholly conventional view of the musician," said
her mother. "If I dared to say such a thing to my own child I might add,
without telling a dangerous lie, because you are so old-fashioned in
your views. You can't forget having read the _Vie de Boheme_, and having
heard, and unfortunately seen, Paderewski when you were a schoolgirl at
Brighton."

"It is my beloved mother's fault that I ever was a schoolgirl at
Brighton."

"Ah, don't press down that burden of crime upon my soul! Lift it, by
freeing yourself from the Brighton tradition, which I ought to have kept
for ever from you. And now, Max, tell us, whom does Mr. Heath know?"

"I know very little about his acquaintance. I met him first at
Wonderland."

"What's that?" asked Charmian. "It sounds more promising."

"It's gone now, but it was a place in Whitechapel, where they had boxing
competitions, Conky Joe against the Nutcracker--that kind of thing."

"I give him up, Te Deum, Conky Joe and all!" she exclaimed in despair.

"Do you mean me to meet him, Max?" asked Mrs. Mansfield.

"Yes. I can't keep him to myself any longer. I must share him with
someone who understands. Come to-morrow evening, won't you, after
dinner? Heath is dining with me."

"Yes. Is Charmian invited?"

Max Elliot looked at Charmian, and she steadily returned his gaze.

"You know," he said after a pause, "that you've got a certain hankering
after lions?"

"Hankering! Don't, don't!"

"But you really have!"

"I will not be put with the vulgar crowd like that. I do not care for
lions. Tigers are my taste."

He laughed.

"Do come then. But remember, there are plants which can only grow in
darkness. And I believe this is one of them."

When Max Elliot had gone, Charmian sat for two or three minutes looking
into the fire, where pale, steely-blue lights played against the
prevailing gold and red. All the absurdity, the nonsense, had dropp