ng, echoes as of steps
passing through the halls of fairy-land, a faint confusion of human-like
tones; then:

"Who is it?"

Her voice left her for an instant; her dry lips made no answer.

"Who is it?" he repeated in his steady, pleasant voice.

"It is I."

There was absolute silence--so long that it frightened her. But before
she could speak again his voice was sounding in her ears, patient,
unconvinced:

"I don't recognise your voice. Who am I speaking to?"

"Sylvia."

There was no response, and she spoke again:

"I only wanted to say good morning. It is afternoon now; is it too late
to say good morning?"

"No. I'm badly rattled. Is it you, Sylvia?"

"Indeed it is. I am in my own room. I--I thought--"

"Yes, I am listening."

"I don't know what I did think. Is it necessary for me to telephone you
a minute account of the mental processes which ended by my calling you
up--out of the vasty deep?"

The old ring in her voice hinting of the laughing undertone, the same
trailing sweetness of inflection--could he doubt his senses any longer?

"I know you, now," he said.

"I should think you might. I should very much like to know how you
are--if you don't mind saying?"

"Thank you. I seem to be all right. Are you all right, Sylvia?"

"Shamefully and outrageously well. What a season, too! Everybody else is
in rags--make-up rags! Isn't that a disagreeable remark? But I'll come
to the paint-brush too, of course. ... We all do. Doesn't anybody ever see
you any more?"

She heard him laugh to himself unpleasantly; then: "Does anybody want
to?"

"Everybody, of course! You know it. You always were spoiled to death."

"Yes--to death."

"Stephen!"

"Yes?"

"Are you becoming cynical?"

"I? Why should I?"

"You are! Stop it! Mercy on us! If that is what is going on in a certain
house on lower Fifth Avenue, facing the corner of certain streets, it's
time somebody dropped in to--"

"To--what?"

"To the rescue! I've a mind to do it myself. They say you are not well,
either."

"Who says that?"

"Oh, the usual little ornithological cockatrice--or, rather, cantatrice.
Don't ask me, because I won't tell you. I always tell you too much,
anyway. Don't I?"

"Do you?"

"Of course I do. Everybody spoils you and so do I."

"Yes--I am rather in that way, I suppose."

"What way?"

"Oh--spoiled."

"Stephen!"

"Yes?"

And in a lower voice: "Please don't say such things--will you?"

"No."

"Espec