of the
lovely thing, and the taste was different but far more lovely than any
woman's lips had ever been before.

"Now may God strike me, but I must be losing my wits," swore McCarthy,
"but I had thought you were made of steel for sure!"

Somewhere afar there came a music of laughter; he could not exactly hear
it but he felt it, as if the very walls were amused with him. It was a
powerful laugh, with an undertinkling to it, like a distant bell beneath
water, struck by a little stone so that it gave out both strong sounds
and little sounds.... A very beautiful laugh but very strange to hear.

With the sound of that laughter an awe came to McCarthy; he felt the
touch of some terrific magic, and he gave up trying to understand what
was happening to him.

"This is a strange place," he muttered, rubbing his chin. "A strange
place indeed. Could ye tell me, Miss Angel, what place this is and how I
can expect to get along here and why you're so good to a poor wanderer
like myself?"

The angel-shape--which second by second was getting to be more and more
the shape of ultimate beauty to his eye, as if she was learning the way
of it better and better right out of his mind, as if she was taking from
his own thinking the colors and the shapes and form and spirit that
would please him most--gave a laugh that was very like the strange great
tinkling sound from nowhere. Her voice was like sparkling water falling
on suspended crystals that rang musically, and she looked into his eyes
out of her own fiery strange eyes of terrible beauty.

"This is the best of all possible places you could have come to, and
your host is the best of all possible hosts and what more do you need to
know today, Peter McCarthy?"

For an instant a shadow passed over the strange glowing eyes of the
angel-shape, as if she remembered something she did not want to
remember, and he asked:

"What is that shadow of trouble, if this is so good a place for me?"

She answered him quickly as the shadow passed from her eyes: "That
shadow is the future, which will eventually get into even this
stronghold and end it all. But until that day comes, why you at least
can make merry. And I will help you...."

* * * * *

So time passed. The visitor was very happy, living in a paradise of
wonder and sensation and love such as no man of earth ever had before.

The days of McCarthy's dreaming became many. There were always about him
sever