desperate epitaph. It meant that I was alone--alone with my ghosts. Yet
it had a certain resurrecting influence, and as I sat there proceeding
dreamily with my meal, one face and another would flash before me, and
memory after memory re-enact itself in the theatre of my fancy. So
much in my actual surroundings brought back the past with an aching
distinctness--particularly the entrance of two charming young people,
making rainbows all about them, as, ushered by a smiling waiter, who was
evidently no stranger to their felicity, they seated themselves at a
neighbouring table with a happy sigh, and neglected the menu for a
moment or two while they gazed, rapt and lost, into each other's eyes.
How well I knew it all; how easily I could have taken the young man's
place, and played the part for which this evening he was so fortunately
cast! As I looked at them, I instinctively summoned to my side the
radiant shade of Aurea, for indeed she had seemed made of gold--gold and
water lilies. And, as of old, when I had called to her, she came swiftly
with a luxurious rustle of fragrant skirts, like the sound of the west
wind among the summer trees, or the swish and sway of the foam about the
feet of Aphrodite. There she sat facing me once more, "a feasting
presence made of light"--her hair like a golden wheat sheaf, her
eyes like blue flowers amid the wheat, and her bosom, by no means
parsimoniously concealed, literally suggesting that the loveliness of
all the water lilies in the world was amassed there within her corset
as in some precious casket. Ours was not one of the great tragic loves,
but I know I shall think of Aurea's bosom on my death-bed. At her coming
I had ordered champagne--we always drank champagne together, because, as
we said, it matched so well with her hair--champagne of a no longer
fashionable brand. The waiter seemed a little surprised to hear it asked
for, but it had been the only _chic_ brand in 19--.

"Look at those two yonder," I said presently, after we had drunk to