pretty much alike to an agricultural laborer; if he cared to listen he
might detect some general differences in sound, but all four tongues
would be equally devoid of significance.

To Lucian, entranced in the garden of Avallaunius, it seemed very strange
that he had once been so ignorant of all the exquisite meanings of life.
Now, beneath the violet sky, looking through the brilliant trellis of the
vines, he saw the picture; before, he had gazed in sad astonishment at
the squalid rag which was wrapped about it.




V


And he was at last in the city of the unending murmuring streets, a part
of the stirring shadow, of the amber-lighted gloom.

It seemed a long time since he had knelt before his sweetheart in the
lane, the moon-fire streaming upon them from the dark circle of the
fort, the air and the light and his soul full of haunting, the touch of
the unimaginable thrilling his heart; and now he sat in a terrible
"bed-sitting-room" in a western suburb, confronted by a heap and litter
of papers on the desk of a battered old bureau.

He had put his breakfast-tray out on the landing, and was thinking of the
morning's work, and of some very dubious pages that he had blackened the
night before. But when he had lit his disreputable briar, he remembered
there was an unopened letter waiting for him on the table; he had