time over those silly old books? I know quite well how the Gervases and
the Dixons feel; they think idleness so injurious for a young man, and
likely to lead to _bad habits_. You know, my dear Lucian, I am only
writing like this because of my affection for you, so I am sure, my dear
boy, you won't be offended."

Lucian pigeon-holed the letter solemnly in the receptacle lettered
"Barbarians." He felt that he ought to ask himself some serious
questions: "Why haven't I passed fifth? why isn't Philip (son of Sir
John) my most intimate friend? why am I an idler, liable to fall into bad
habits?" but he was eager to get to his work, a curious and intricate
piece of analysis. So the battered bureau, the litter of papers, and the
thick fume of his pipe, engulfed him and absorbed him for the rest of
the morning. Outside were the dim October mists, the dreary and languid
life of a side street, and beyond, on the main road, the hum and jangle
of the gliding trains. But he heard none of the uneasy noises of the
quarter, not even the shriek of the garden gates nor the yelp of the
butcher on his round, for delight in his great task made him unconscious
of the world outside.

He had come by curious paths to this calm hermitage between Shepherd's
Bush and Acton Vale. The golden weeks of the summer passed on in their
enchanted procession, and Annie had not returned, neither had she
written. Lucian, on his side, sat apart, wondering why his longing for
her were not shaper. As he though of his raptures he would smile faintly
to himself, and wonder whether he had not lost the world and Annie with
it. In the garden of Avallaunius his sense of external things had grown
dim and indistinct; the actual, material life seemed every day to become
a show, a fleeting of shadows across a great white light. At last the
news came that Annie Morgan had been married from her sister's house to a