unded, at this loss of twenty coveted words. He wasn't angry,
but he puffed his cigarette sighingly, with the sense of something rare
possibly missed. He wandered away with his regret and moved slowly round
the room, looking at the old prints on the walls. In this attitude he
presently felt a hand on his shoulder and a friendly voice in his ear
"This is good. I hoped I should find you. I came down on purpose." St.
George was there without a change of dress and with a fine face--his
graver one--to which our young man all in a flutter responded. He
explained that it was only for the Master--the idea of a little talk--that
he had sat up, and that, not finding him, he had been on the point of
going to bed.

"Well, you know, I don't smoke--my wife doesn't let me," said St. George,
looking for a place to sit down. "It's very good for me--very good for
me. Let us take that sofa."

"Do you mean smoking's good for you?"

"No no--her not letting me. It's a great thing to have a wife who's so
sure of all the things one can do without. One might never find them out
one's self. She doesn't allow me to touch a cigarette." They took
possession of a sofa at a distance from the group of smokers, and St.
George went on: "Have you got one yourself?"

"Do you mean a cigarette?"

"Dear no--a wife."

"No; and yet I'd give up my cigarette for one."

"You'd give up a good deal more than that," St. George returned.
"However, you'd get a great deal in return. There's a something to be
said for wives," he added, folding his arms and crossing his outstretched
legs. He declined tobacco altogether and sat there without returning
fire. His companion stopped smoking, touched by his courtesy; and after
all they were out of the fumes, their sofa was in a far-away corner. It
would have been a mistake, St. George went on, a great mistake for them
to have separated without a little chat; "for I know all about you," he
said, "I know you're very remarkable. You've written a very
distinguished book."

"And how do you know it?" Paul asked.

"Why, my dear fellow, it's in the air, it's in the papers, it's
everywhere." St. George spoke with the immediate familiarity of a
confrere--a tone that seemed to his neighbour the very rustle of the
laurel. "You're on all men's lips and, what's better, on all women's.
And I've just been reading your book."

"Just? You hadn't read it this afternoon," said Overt.

"How do you know that?"