that my attention's drawn to it."

For the ensuing few minutes he thought it all over, soberly but with a
stout heart; standing at a window of his bedroom in the Hotel Pless, hands
deep in trouser pockets, pipe fuming voluminously, his gaze wandering out
over a blurred infinitude of wet shining roofs and sooty chimney-pots: all
of London that a lowering drizzle would let him see, and withal by no means
a cheering prospect, nor yet one calculated to offset the disheartening
influence of the indomitable Shade of Care. But the truth is that
Kirkwood's brain comprehended little that his eyes perceived; his thoughts
were with his heart, and that was half a world away and sick with pity
for another and a fairer city, stricken in the flower of her loveliness,
writhing in Promethean agony upon her storied hills.

There came a rapping at the door.

Kirkwood removed the pipe from between his teeth long enough to say "Come
in!" pleasantly.

The knob was turned, the door opened. Kirkwood, swinging on one heel,
beheld hesitant upon the threshold a diminutive figure in the livery of the
Pless pages.

"Mister Kirkwood?"

Kirkwood nodded.

"Gentleman to see you, sir."

Kirkwood nodded again, smiling. "Show him up, please," he said. But before