With a blush he hurriedly declared his readiness to see the visitor home.

Of the walk that followed he had afterwards no clear recollection. It appeared to his mind through a haze, wine-coloured and honey-scented. All that he could remember definitely was that, somehow, he had promised to meet her in two days. From whom the suggestion had first come he could not quite recall, only that the desire had seemed wonderfully mutual.

That afternoon upon the wished-for day he sat musing over his empty cup and plate until his landlady came to clear away. He was happily unconscious of the contemptuous glance that she flung at him; but her noisy rattling of the tea-things awoke him from his Elysian dreams. With a half-sigh, half-smile, he sat down to occupy a weary hour with a text-book of physiography.

His divinity did not leave her workroom before eight o'clock. She had promised to meet him at half-past that hour, the brief interval being devoted to purposes of personal adornment. Truth to say, the girl was not particularly gratified by this her latest conquest. To her mind Robert Engle had no go' in him; indeed, if she had not at that time been lacking an avowed admirer she would hardly have cared further to pursue the chase.

As malicious fate would have it, the day after she had promised to meet Engle a grocer's assistant, whose moustache was as abundant and black as that of any villain of melodrama, showed an unmistakable desire to become further acquainted with her. This was flattering, but a trifle inconvenient.

'Just my luck!' she said to the apprentices in her workroom, who listened with unfeigned interest to highly coloured and romantic versions of her love affairs. She proceeded to relate that she had got well on with a gentleman madly in love with her-she could tell them he was quite the gentleman; then there had come this other fellow, saying he had been waiting, goodness knew how long, for an introduction. She had seen him smile at her day after day, but she had always held her head high, as they might guess. That had only made him think the more of her; and here he was, ready to take her to a play, Earl's Court, anywhere she would like to go to; but she had fixed it up with this other one. It was a bit awkward, as they must see.

A senior apprentice said shrewdly, as Etty stopped to bite off a thread of cotton, that the thing was would this other one be any good?

For a few moments Etty Clark looked dubious. With a toss of her head she regained confidence.

Yes, he meant business, she declared. At any rate, if he doesn't I'll soon find it out. After all, there's nothing like a gentleman. I have always been a bit particular-too particular, perhaps. I've never been one to mix myself up with a common lot.'

At half-past eight that evening Robert Engle was at the meetingplace with a feverish punctuality. He had not long to wait before Etty Clark came in sight. With various cheap adornments she had done her best to destroy any natural charm she might have had. A subtle sense of this entered Robert Engle's mind as, with a look of non-committal, he eyed the string of imitation pearls around her neck, the feather boa flaunting on her shoulders, the elaborately trimmed hat perched rakishly on the side of her head. They exchanged greetings.

Then Engle asked where should they go for a walk, and she replied that it was all the same to her.

One who was used to the ways of Etty Clark might have discovered a slight note of aggression in her voice. In spite of her assurance to the other girls, she was beginning to regret that she had wasted so much time upon this young schoolmaster, who might, after all, be unprofitable. As if to arouse her discontent, she had on her way to this meeting passed the grocer's assistant, resplendent and debonair, and by contrast Engle appeared dull and stupid. His manner of quiet deference, which at first had been somewhat pleasing, quickly palled on her, and did not promise much excitement. I know of a pretty walk,' he said; and he thought of a country lane, some two miles away, which possessed rural charms hardly to be expected within ten miles of the great city. anticipated innocent joys hitherto undreamed of, and believed that the coming hour would redeem many a weary day in the past. Unfortunately his companion lacked the nature and the mood for a country ramble. She paced demurely by his side, somewhat piqued when they came to unfrequented parts and she found that Robert Engle did not offer his arm.

He

He paid her none of the compliments that her soul craved; his conversation was purely impersonal, and he betrayed no sign of the passion that consumed him. Etty dangled provocatively a plump hand squeezed into a tight kid-glove, but Engle did not take it in his, as she expected. He walked at her side, his face

pale and restrained, only an unusual glint of his eyes betraying

emotion.

Etty chattered volubly, in a manner that she considered wholly charming, upon various topics that appealed to her. She laughed shrilly at her own jokes, while her companion listened with a vague bewilderment. He was provokingly dense, seeming not to regard her various hints that one love-scene in the piece now being acted at the nearest suburban playhouse was suggestive of their own situation. He expressed no regret when she told him that she had not been to Earl's Court that summer, nor did he seem interested when she told him that her birthday was next week.

Finding that these shots had missed their mark, Etty began to show annoyance. She bit her lip and gave sulky monosyllabic answers to the few remarks Engle made from time to time. He was supremely happy, and had forgotten the imitation pearls, the smart hat, and the tight gloves. The tender radiance of a summer evening was all around; on one side a green smiling valley, on the other broad pastures; while in the breeze and rustle of the trees he heard the pipes of Pan.

To the girl the scene was unutterably dull, and her companion likewise. She could hardly listen with patience when in low tones he spoke of the beauty of earth and sky.

The mischance of Robert's life was that he possessed the soul of a poet, while his lips remained sealed. Every poetic instinct was there, but it seemed as if expression had been denied him. Often the metre of a dumb verse would flash through his mind, and here and there a word or a phrase of exceeding beauty break forth. His mind contained fragments of dream-like stories, delicate and rare; but, strangely enough, the unfinished manuscripts hidden away at his lodgings were harsh and crude. To his bitterness he was beginning to realise that it was not his lot to be maker of song or story.

However, that mattered little at this moment, when at his side was the tangible embodiment of his fairest dreams. Thus they sauntered on, the girl growing more and more irritable. Suddenly she stopped short and turned on her heel.

'Look here!'

The vixenish quality of her voice jarred upon her companion as he awoke from his ecstasy.

'I've had enough of this!'

'Of this? Of what?' he stammered, puzzled and alarmed.

'Why, of mooning along here like a pair of ninnies. I'm tired to death. I didn't come out to tramp the country at this time of night.'

The merest shadow of a silver crescent moon hung in a pale purple sky.

Something in the amazed look with which Engle regarded her increased Etty's annoyance. She grew more voluble and shrill, her petulance increasing as she went on.

He heard like a rattle of small arms that she was not accustomed to this sort of thing; that she was faint and tired, as might be expected after such a walk; that this was not the way she should be treated; she knew manners if somebody else didn't, and no gentleman would have treated her so.

That the volley was received with amazement enraged her still further, and she became more explicit. It was her opinion that, unless there were a definite engagement, it was far better to go to a place of amusement. She wasn't accustomed to be dragged about country lanes, and she didn't think it the right thing, without a clear promise.

Robert Engle listened like one half-stunned.

'I am sorry,' he said; 'I beg your pardon. I did not think you would object.'

Something in his strained tones helped her to regain some thin rag of self-control, and she walked along in silence, half sullen, half remorseful. Soon they reached the lighted suburban streets, where the school-teacher wished his companion Good-night.' Shamefacedly she murmured something about having said more than she meant, and that she for one was ready to make it up. She might have spared herself this effort, for Robert Engle had relinquished any claim he might have had upon her society, and, so far as he was concerned, the grocer's assistant had no rival.

He left her and walked to his lodgings, his heart full of bitterness. He felt his soul defiled by the vulgarity and greed of one whom he had set upon the high altar of his soul. All life seemed base and sordid that night.

He reflected, with bitterness, that while he remained in his present position most of the women he was fated to meet would prove to be of this type, odious and predatory. How, indeed, could they be otherwise? They, like himself, had to fight for what they wanted. With a sort of terror he thought of the occupa

tion he so unwillingly followed, and realised that it held him captive as a maimed rabbit in a steel trap. Despondency filled his eyes.

But the horror passed, as horrors will, and the slender episode in no way changed the hue of Robert Engle's life. He bore his disillusionment philosophically, regarding his own emotions with a cynicism by no means unpleasing to himself. For was it not something of an adventure to have fallen in love at all?

He bore without flinching the news brought to him by his tidings-loving landlady, that Etty Clark was engaged to be married to Mr. Henry Judson, the grocer's assistant aforesaid.

The betrothed pair called one evening upon that lady, and in this way Engle spoke for the first time to the bridegroom-elect, who was hilarious to a well-nigh unbearable degree. Etty was unusually quiet. Once or twice the discarded Robert found. her eyes fixed upon him with a meaning that he failed to under

stand.

When the pair had gone, the landlady told him that the marriage was to take place in a surprisingly short time.

'Henry Judson is to be made manager of a new branch just being opened,' she explained. That's why they've got to hurry up. If he didn't marry he'd have to engage a housekeeper, for he's going to live over the shop. I hope it won't be a case of Marry in haste and repent at leisure "; that's what I say to Etty. There's no denying he's handsome and rising-like, as one might say; but there, one never knows.'

66

She shook her head oracularly, and went away, leaving the young school-teacher regarding the vision of his shattered ideal.

Months passed; the couple were married. Engle continued to teach the same class in the same room of the same school. He read poetry with more assiduity than ever; the wheels of life jogged on, in fact, in their accustomed ruts. Without effort on his part the remembrance of Etty with her cheap fascinations and her unlovely cravings passed from his mind.

He moved to fresh lodgings, and thus it was that he had no news about her until a day when an announcement in a local paper told him that Etty, the beloved wife of Henry Judson,' had died in her twenty-fifth year. An infant, prematurely born, had died also.

It scarcely moved him. He had a passing regret that one who had grasped at life with such avidity should have been swept out of reach of all that she craved; but that was all.