_after_ he should be engaged to his hostess.

Mr. Carlyon had wired back, "Come if you like," and on this evening in
early June John Derringham arrived at the orchard house.

Cheiron made no allusion to the matter that had caused them to part with
some breezy words upon his old pupil's side. Mrs. Cricklander or
Wendover might not have existed; their talk was upon philosophy and
politics, and contained not the shadow of a woman--even Halcyone was not
mentioned at all.

Whitsuntide fell late that year, at the end of the first week in June,
and the spring having been exceptionally mild, the foliage was all in
full beauty of the freshest green.

It was astonishingly hot, and every divine scent of the night came to
John Derringham as he went out into the garden before going to bed. A
young setting half-moon still hung in the sky, and there were stars. One
of those nights when all the mystery of life seems to be revealing
itself in the one word--Love. The nightingale throbbed out its note in
the copse amidst a perfect stillness, and the ground was soft without a
drop of dew.

John Derringham, hatless, and with his hands plunged in the pockets of
his dinner coat, wandered down the garden towards the apple tree,
picking an early red rosebud as he passed a bush--its scent intoxicated
him a little. Then he went to the gate, and, opening it, he strolled
into the park. Here was a vaster and more perfect view. It was all
clothed in the unknown of the half dark, and yet he could distinguish
the outline of the giant trees. He went on as if in some delicious