to see Austin; and we sat in the library where all the curtains are in linen bags and all the furniture in overalls, and where the rugs are rolled in tarred paper and the pictures are muffled in cheese-cloth.

“And after our conference had ended and I was on my way to the hall below, suddenly on my ear, faint but clear, I heard your voice, sweet as the odour of blossoms in an empty room.  No—­it neither deceived nor startled me; I have often heard it before, when you were nowhere near.  And, that I may answer your question more completely, I answer it again:  Yes, I miss you; so that I hear your voice through every silence; all voids are gay with it; there are no lonely places where my steps pass, because you are always near; no stillness through which your voice does not sound; no unhappiness, no sordid cares which the memory of you does not make easier to endure.

“Have I answered?  And now, good-night.  Gerald has just come in; I hear him passing through the hall to his own apartments.  So I’ll drop in for a smoke with him before I start to search for you in dreamland.  Good-night, Eileen.  PHILIP SELWYN.”

When he had finished, sealed, and stamped his letter he leaned back in his chair, smiling to himself, still under the spell which the thought of her so often now cast over him.  Life and the world were younger, cleaner, fresher; the charming energy of her physical vigour and youth and beauty tinted all things with the splendid hue of inspiration.  But most of all it was the exquisite fastidiousness of her thoughts that had begun to inthral him—­that crystal clear intelligence, so direct, so generous—­the splendid wholesome attitude toward life—­and her dauntless faith in the goodness of it.

Breathing deeply, he drew in the fragrance of her memory, and the bitterness of things was dulled with every quiet respiration.

He smiled again, too; how utterly had his sister mistaken their frank companionship!  How stupidly superfluous was it to pretend to detect, in their comradeship, the commonplaces of sentiment—­as though such a girl as Eileen Erroll were of the common self-conscious mould—­as though in their cordial understanding there was anything less simple than community of taste and the mutual attraction of intelligence!

Then, the memory of what his sister had said drove the smile from his face and he straightened up impatiently.  Love!  What unfortunate hallucination had obsessed Nina to divine what did not exist?—­what need not exist?  How could a woman like his sister fall into such obvious error; how could she mistake such transparent innocence, such visible freedom from motive in this young girl’s pure friendship for himself?

And, as for him, he had never thought of Eileen—­he could not bring himself to think of her so materially or sentimentally.  For, although he now understood that he had never known what love, might be—­its coarser mask, infatuation, he had learned to see through; and, as that is all he had ever known concerning love, the very hint of it had astonished and repelled him, as though the mere suggestion had been a rudeness offered to this delicate and delicious friendship blossoming into his life—­a life he had lately thought so barren and laid waste.