crowd is. And you must not tell me you never like the Cafe Royal, for if
you do I shall not believe you."

"I do like it at times," he acknowledged. "But to-night, sitting here,
the mere thought of it is almost hateful to me. It is all vermilion and
orange colour, while this . . ."

"Is drab!"

"No, indeed! Dim purple, perhaps, or deepest green."

"You couldn't bear it for long. You would soon begin longing for
vermilion again."

"You seem to think me very young. I am twenty-nine."

"Have you ceased to love wildness already?"

"No," he answered truthfully. "But there is something there which makes
me feel as if it were almost vulgar."

"No, no. It need not be vulgar. It can be wonderful--beautiful, even.
It can be like the wild light which sometimes breaks out in the midst
of the blackness of a storm and which is wilder far than the darkest
clouds. Do you ever read William Watson?"

"I have read some of his poems."

"There is one I think very beautiful. I wonder if you know it. 'Pass,
thou wild heart, wild heart of youth that still hast half a will to