n vain, and died of grief; and
her soul went into a tigress; and she came in the night-time where her
lover lay sleeping by the firelight, and she carried him off into the
ghost-world. It was a most creepy thing--I sat out here and read it,
and I could imagine the terrible tigress lurking in the shadows, with
its stripes shining in the firelight, and its green eyes gleaming. You
know that poem--we used to read it in school--'Tiger, tiger, burning
bright!'"

It was not very easy for Montague to imagine a tigress in Mrs. Winnie's
conservatory; unless, indeed, one were willing to take the proposition
in a metaphorical sense. There are wild creatures which sleep in the
heart of man, and which growl now and then, and stir their tawny limbs,
and cause one to start and turn cold. Mrs. Winnie wore a dress of filmy
softness, trimmed with red flowers which paled beside her own intenser
colouring. She had a perfume of her own, with a strange exotic
fragrance which touched the chorus of memory as only an odour can. She
leaned towards him, speaking eagerly, with her soft white arms lying
upon the basin's rim. So much loveliness could not be gazed at without
pain; and a faint trembling passed through Montague, like a breeze
across a pool. Perhaps it touched Mrs. Winnie also, for she fell
suddenly silent, and her gaze wandered off into the darkness. For a
minute or two there was stillness, save for the pulse of the fountain,
and the heaving of her bosom keeping time with it.

And then in the morning Oliver inquired, "Where were you, last night?"
And when his brother answered, "At Mrs. Winnie's," he smiled and said,
"Oh!" Then he added, gravely, "Cultivate Mrs. Winnie--you can't do
better at present."

CHAPTER XI

Montague accepted his friend's invitation to share her pew at St.
Cecilia's, and next Sunday morning he and Alice went, and found Mrs.
Winnie with her cousin. Poor Charlie had evidently been scrubbed and
shined, both physically and morally, and got ready to appeal for "one
more chance." While he shook hands with Alice, he was gazing at her
with dumb and pleading eyes; he seemed to be profoundly grateful that
she did not refuse to enter the pew with him.

A most interesting place was St. Cecilia's. Church-going was another of
the customs of men and women which Society had taken up, like the
Opera, and made into a state function. Here was a magnificent temple,
with carved marble and rare woods, and jewels gleaming