al rights--are shrieking out for a synopsis. I'm damned if I'm
going to give 'em a synopsis. They get on my nerves. And--we're intimate
enough friends, you and I, for me to confess it--so do our dearest
Barbara and old Jaff, and you yourself, when you want to know how I'm
getting on. Look, dear old Hilary"--he laughed again and threw himself
into an armchair--"giving birth to a book isn't very much unlike giving
birth to a baby. It's analogical in all sorts of ways. Well, some women,
as soon as the thing is started, can talk quite freely--sweetly and
delicately--I haven't a word to say against them--to all their women
friends about it. Others shrink. There's something about it too near
their innermost souls for them to give their confidence to anyone. Well,
dear old Hilary--that's how I feel about the novel."

He spoke from his heart. I understood--like Doria.

"Elizabeth Barrett Browning calls it 'the sorrowful, great gift,'" said
I. "We who haven't got it can only bow to those who have."

Adrian rose and took a few strides about the library.

"I'm afraid I've been talking a lot of inflated nonsense. It must sound
awfully like swelled head. But you know it isn't, don't you?"

"Don't he an idiot," said I. "Let us talk of something else."

We did not return to the subject.

In the course of time came Mrs. Considine to carry off Liosha to the
First Class Boarding House which she had found in Queen's Gate. Liosha
left us full of love for Barbara and Susan and I think of kindly feeling
for myself. A few days afterwards Jaffery went off to sail a small boat
with another lunatic in the Hebrides. A little later Doria and Adrian
went to pay a round of short family visits beginning with Mrs. Boldero.
So before August was out, Barbara and Susan and I found ourselves alone.

"Now," said I, "I can get through some work."

"Now," said Barbara, "we can run over to Dinard."

"What?" I shouted.

"Dinard," she said, softly. "We always go. We only put it off this year
on account of visitors."

"We definitely made up our minds," I retorted, "that we weren't going to
leave this beautiful garden. You know I never change my mind. I'm not
going away."

Barbara left the room, whistling a musical comedy air.

We went to Dinard.

CHAPTER VII

There is a race of gifted people who make their livelihood by writing
descriptions of weddings. I envy them. They can crowd so many pebbly
facts into such a small compass. They kn