that he was having the charming impression for the first time.

"Ah you've not been here before?" said his companion. "It's a nice
little place--not much to _do_, you know". Overt wondered what he wanted
to "do"--he felt that he himself was doing so much. By the time they
came to where the others sat he had recognised his initiator for a
military man and--such was the turn of Overt's imagination--had found him
thus still more sympathetic. He would naturally have a need for action,
for deeds at variance with the pacific pastoral scene. He was evidently
so good-natured, however, that he accepted the inglorious hour for what
it was worth. Paul Overt shared it with him and with his companions for
the next twenty minutes; the latter looked at him and he looked at them
without knowing much who they were, while the talk went on without much
telling him even what it meant. It seemed indeed to mean nothing in
particular; it wandered, with casual pointless pauses and short
terrestrial flights, amid names of persons and places--names which, for
our friend, had no great power of evocation. It was all sociable and
slow, as was right and natural of a warm Sunday morning.

His first attention was given to the question, privately considered, of
whether one of the two younger men would be Henry St. George. He knew
many of his distinguished contemporaries by their photographs, but had
never, as happened, seen a portrait of the great misguided novelist. One
of the gentlemen was unimaginable--he was too young; and the other
scarcely looked clever enough, with such mild undiscriminating eyes. If
those eyes were St. George's the problem, presented by the ill-matched
parts of his genius would be still more difficult of solution. Besides,
the deportment of their proprietor was not, as regards the lady in the
red dress, such as could be natural, toward the wife of his bosom, even
to a writer accused by several critics of sacrificing too much to manner.