shall read your book again when I go up."

Our friend faced round in his place--he was touched as he had scarce ever
been by the picture of such a demonstration in his favour. "You're
really the kindest of men. Cela s'est passe comme ca?--and I've been
sitting here with you all this time and never apprehended it and never
thanked you!"

"Thank Miss Fancourt--it was she who wound me up. She has made me feel
as if I had read your novel."

"She's an angel from heaven!" Paul declared.

"She is indeed. I've never seen any one like her. Her interest in
literature's touching--something quite peculiar to herself; she takes it
all so seriously. She feels the arts and she wants to feel them more. To
those who practise them it's almost humiliating--her curiosity, her
sympathy, her good faith. How can anything be as fine as she supposes
it?"

"She's a rare organisation," the younger man sighed.

"The richest I've ever seen--an artistic intelligence really of the first
order. And lodged in such a form!" St. George exclaimed.

"One would like to represent such a girl as that," Paul continued.

"Ah there it is--there's nothing like life!" said his companion. "When
you're finished, squeezed dry and used up and you think the sack's empty,
you're still appealed to, you still get touches and thrills, the idea