lla had been languid and dreamy.

Suddenly she rose to her feet.

"I must go," she said, "but I have enjoyed myself so much. You are an
ideal host: thank you a thousand times. Perhaps we shall meet again some
day, if you return to the world. Do you know, we've been talking and
wrangling for hours and hours and never even thought of wondering what
each other's names are--I think we've paid each other a very magnificent
compliment, don't you?"

He smiled and said: "My name is Maurice Brent."

"Mine is Diana Redmayne. If it sounds like somebody in the _Family
Herald_, I can't help it." He had wheeled the bicycle into the road, and
she had put on hat and gloves and stood ready to mount before she said:
"If you come back to the world I shall almost certainly meet you. We
seem to know the same people; I've heard your name many times."

"From whom?" said he.

"Among others," said she, with her foot on the pedal, "from my cousin
Camilla. Good-bye."

And he was left to stare down the road after the swift flying figure.

Then he went back into the lonely little house, and about half-past
twelve that night he realised that he had done no work that day, and
that those hours which had not been spent talking to Diana Redmayne, had
been spent in thinking about her.

"It's not because she's pretty and clever," he said; "and it's not even
because she's a woman. It's because she's the only intelligent human
being I've spoken to for nearly a year."

So day after day he went on thinking about her.

It was three weeks later that the bell again creaked and jangled, and
again through the spotted glass he saw a woman's hat. To his infinite
disgust and surprise, his heart began to beat violently.

"I grow nervous, living all alone," he said. "Confound this door! how it
does stick--I must have it planed."

He got the door opened, and found himself face to face with--Camilla.

He stepped back, and bowed gravely.

She looked more beautiful than ever--and he looked at her, and wondered
how he could ever have thought her even passably pretty.

"Won't you ask me in?" she said timidly.

"No," said he, "I am all alone."

"I know," she said. "I have only just heard you're living here all
alone, and I came to say--Maurice--I'm sorry. I didn't know you cared so
much, or----"

"Don't," he said, stopping the confession as a good batsman stops a
cricket ball. "Believe me, I've not made myself a hermit because of--all
that. I had a boo