usic in it, and cherry-trees to sit under, and white bloom
and stars and lips to kiss.

Between nine and ten, after a very countrified supper we went up to
bed in the slanting-roofed room under the thatch, full still of the
tender light of a spring evening.

The next day was delicious, too, and the next, but on the fourth we
were quite ready to go. We had drained the cup of joy which that
particular place held for us and it had no more to offer. The
cherry-tree pleased us still, but it did not give us the ecstatic
thrill of the first view of it. The lilac scent streamed in, but it
did not go to the head and intoxicate us as when we came straight from
the air of Waterloo; the thrush gurgled as passionately on the deep
green lawn, but the gurgle did not stir the blood. All was the same,
only the strange spell of novelty was gone.

Viola seemed so pleased to be leaving it quite hurt me. When I went
upstairs I found her packing her little handbag with alacrity and
singing.

"Are you glad to be going?" I asked.

"Yes," she said surprised; "are not you?"

"But you have been happy here?" I said with a tone of remonstrance.

"Oh, yes!" she exclaimed; "wildly, intensely happy! It's been four
days' enchantment, but then it's gone now; we can't get any _more_ out
of this place. We have enjoyed it so much we have drained it,
exhausted it; like the bees, we must move on to a fresh flower."

It was true that was all we could do, yet I looked round the bare
attic-like room with regret. Could ever another give me more than that
had done? Could there ever be a keener joy, a deeper delight than I
had known in the shadows of that first violet night?

PART THREE

THE BLACK NIGHT

CHAPTER VI

IN MAYFAIR

The spring of the next year found us installed in a small house in
Mayfair, for the season.

For a year we had been abroad; the summer in Italy, the winter in
Egypt, and had come back with our eyes full of colour, armed against
the deadly greyness of England for three months at least.

We had travelled as Mr. and Mrs. Lonsdale, we came back as Mr. and
Mrs. Lonsdale. There had been no difficulty so far. Every one seemed
satisfied, and what was far more important, so were we.

The whole top floor of the Mayfair house was my studio, and made a
fairly large and convenient one. We kept on the old studio as a matter
of sentiment, but rarely went there now.

The "Phryne" and the "Soul of the Wood" had been fini