'Marseillaise,' I remember, all the way to Amy Villa whither I
accompanied him.

It was the last day of Kauffer's contract; and besides, all the
world, secretaries, establishments, hill captains, grass widows,
shops, and sundries, was trundling down the hill. I came to ask my
young friend what he meant to do.

'Do?' he cried. 'Why, eat, drink, and be merry! Kauffer has paid
up, and his yoke is at the bottom of the sea. Come back and dine
with me!'

The hour we spent together in his little inner room before dinner
was served stands out among my strangest, loveliest memories of
Armour. He was divinely caught up, and absurd as it is to write, he
seemed to carry me with him. We drank each a glass of vermouth
before dinner sitting over a scented fire of deodar branches, while
outside the little window in front of me the lifted lines of the
great empty Himalayan landscape faded and fell into a blur. I
remembered the solitary scarlet dahlia that stood between us and the
vast cold hills and held its colour when all was grey but that. The
hill world waited for the winter; down a far valley we could hear a
barking deer. Armour talked slowly, often hesitating for a word, of
the joy there was in beauty and the divinity in the man who saw it
with his own eyes. I have read notable pages that brought
conviction pale beside that which stole about the room from what he
said. The comment may seem fantastic, but it is a comment--I
caressed the dog. The servant clattered in with the plates, and at
a shout outside Armour left me. He came in radiant with Signor
Strobo, also radiant and carrying a violin, for hotel-keeping was