worthily applied
attention to one of a new brand of cigars, a corona corona, that had its
merits but lacked an indefinable soul-satisfying aroma; and I was on the
pleasurable and elusive point of critical formulation, when Jaffery's
voice, booming down the terrace, knocked the discriminating nicety out
of my head. I lazily shifted my position and watched the pair.

"You're subtle and psychological and introspective and analytic and all
that," Jaffery was saying--his light word about an ogre at lunch was not
a bad one; sitting side by side on the low parapet they looked like a
vast red-bearded ogre and a feminine black-haired elf--she had taken off
her hat--engaged in a conversation in which the elf looked very much on
the defensive--"and you're always tracking down motives to their roots,
and you're not contented, like me, with the jolly face of things--"

"For an accurate diagnosis," I reflected, "of an individual woman's
nature, the blatant universalist has his points."

"Whereas, I, you see," he continued, "just buzz about life like a
dunderheaded old bumble-bee. I'm always busting myself up against glass
panes, not seeing, as you would, the open window a few inches off. Do
you see what I'm driving at?"

Apparently she didn't; for while she was speaking, he threw away his
corona corona--a dream of a cigar for nine hundred and ninety-nine men
out of a thousand (I glanced at Adrian who had religiously preserved two
inches of ash on his)--and hauled out pipe and tobacco-pouch. I could
not hear what she said. When she had finished, he edged a span nearer.

"What I want you to understand," said he, "is that I'm a simple sort of
savage. I can't follow all these intricate henry Jamesian complications
of feeling. I've had in my life"--he stuck pouch and pipe on the stone
beside him--"I've had in my life just a few men I've loved--I don't
count women--men--men I've cared for, God knows why. Do you know why one
cares for people?"

She smiled, shrugged her shoulders and shook her head.

"The latest was poor Prescott--he has just pegged out--you'll hear soon
enough about Prescott. There was Tom Castleton--has Adrian told you
about Castleton--?"

Again she shook her head.

"He will--of course--a wonder of a fellow--up with us at Cambridge. He's
dead. There only remains Hilary, our host, and Adrian."

As far as I could gather--for she spoke in the ordinary tones of
civilised womanhood, whereas Jaffery, under the impress