When he had finished breakfast, Matthias lighted a pipe, and setting his feet anew in the groove they had worn diagonally from door to window, began his matutinal tramp toward inspiration.

But this morning found his brain singularly sluggish: thoughts would not come; or if they showed themselves at all, it was only to peer mischievously at him round some distant corner which, when turned, discovered only an empty impasse.

Distressed, he tamped down his pipe, ran long fingers through his hair, and wrapped himself in clouds of smoke. Then a breath of cool, sweet air fanned his cheek, and he looked round in sharp annoyance. It was like that fool maid to leave the windows open and freeze him to death! And truly enough, they were both wide open from top to bottom; though, for all that, he wasn\'t freezing. And outside there was a bright crimson border of potted geraniums on the iron-railed balcony. He hadn\'t noticed them before; Madame Duprat must have set them out before he was up. Curious whim of hers! Curious weather!

Disliking inconsistencies, he stopped in one of the windows to investigate these unseasonable phenomena.

In one corner of the back-yard a dilapidated bundle of fur and bones, conforming in general with a sardonic Post-Impressionist\'s candid opinion of a tom-cat, lay blinking lazily in a patch of warm yellow sunlight.

In the next back-yard a ridiculous young person in bare-legs, blue denim overalls and a small red sweater, was industriously turning up the earth with a six-inch trowel, and chanting cheerfully to himself an improvisation in honour of his garden that was to be.

At an open window across the way a public-spirited and extremely pretty young woman appeared with a towel pinned round her shoulders and let down her hair, a shimmering cascade of gold for the sun\'s rays to wanton with and, incidentally, to dry.

Somewhere at a distance a cracked old piano-organ was romping and giggling rapturously through the syncopated measures of Tin Pan Alley\'s latest "rag."

A vision drifted before Matthias\' eyes, of the green slopes of Tanglewood, the white chateau on its windy headland, the ineffable blue of the Sound beyond....

Incredulous, he turned to consult his calendar: the day was Wednesday, the seventeenth of April.

It was true, then: almost without his knowledge the bleak and barren Winter had worn away and Spring had stolen upon Town, flaunting, extravagant, shy and seductive, irresistible Spring....

For a little Matthias held back in doubt, with reluctant thoughts of his work. Then—all in a breath—he caught up hat and stick, slammed the door behind him, and blundered forth to fulfill his destiny....

She was seated on a bench, in a retired spot sheltered from the breeze, open to the sun, when Matthias, having swung round the upper reservoir, came at full stride down the West Drive, his blood romping, his eyes aglow, warm colour in his face: for the first time in half a year feeling himself again, Matthias the lover of the open skies divorced from Matthias of the midnight lamp and the scored and intricate manuscripts—that Matthias whom the world rejected.

At a word, her companion rose and moved to intercept him; and at the sound of his name, Matthias paused, wondering who she could be, this strange, sweet-faced woman, plainly dressed.

"Yes?" he said, lifting his hat. "I am Mr. Matthias—yes—"

"Mrs. Marbridge would like to speak to you."

His gaze veered quickly in the direction indicated by her brief nod. He saw Venetia waiting, and immediately went to her, in his surprise forgetful of the woman who had accosted him. This last moved slowly in the other direction and sat down out of earshot.

"This is awfully good of you, Venetia," he said, bending over her hand. "I didn\'t see you, of course—was thinking of something else—"

"But I was thinking of you," she said. "I\'ve been wanting to see you for a long time, Jack."

"Surely Helena could have told you where to find me...."

"I knew we\'d run across one another, somehow, somewhere, sometime—today or tomorrow, without fail. So I was content to do without the offices of Helena. Do sit down. I want so much to talk to you."

"Most completely yours to command," he said lightly, and took the place beside her.

But his heart was on his lips and in his eyes, and Venetia was far from blind.

"Then tell me about yourself," she asked. "It\'s been so long since I\'ve had any news!"

"Is it possible? I should have imagined my doting aunt—"

She interrupted with a slight, negative smile and shake of her head: "Helena doesn\'t approve of me, you know, and of late there has been a decided coolness between the families. I\'m afraid George fell out with Vincent for some reason—not too hard to guess, perhaps."

He looked away, colouring with embarrassment.

"So," she pursued evenly—"about yourself: are you married yet?"

Matthias started, laughed frankly. "You didn\'t know about that, either?... Well, it\'s true even Helena couldn\'t have told you much, for I told her nothing.... No, I\'m neither married, nor like to be."

"She was so very sweet and pretty—"

"Joan was wholly charming," he agreed gravely, "but—well, I fancy it was inevitable. We were lucky enough to be obliged to endure a separation of some weeks before, instead of after, marriage; and so we had time to think. At least, she must have foreseen the mistake we were on the point of making, for the break was her own doing—not mine."

"You think it would have been a mistake?"

"Oh, unquestionably. I confess I\'d not have known it, probably, until too late, if she hadn\'t made me think when she threw me over. I hope it doesn\'t sound caddish—but I was conscious of a distinct sense of relief when I got back from California and found she\'d cleared out without leaving me a line."

"I think I understand. And did you never hear from her?"

"Not from—by accident, of her. She was predestined for the stage—I can see that clearly now, though I objected then. She was offered a chance during my absence, jumped at it, and made a sort of a half-way hit in a very successful sketch which, oddly enough, I happened to have written—under a pseudonym. It had been kicking round my agent\'s office for a year; he didn\'t believe in it any more than I did; and I disbelieved in it hard enough to be ashamed to put my own name to it. That\'s often the way with a fellow\'s work; one always believes in the cripples, you know.... Well, some actor chanced to get hold of the \'script one day, fell in love with it and put it on with Joan as his leading woman. If it had been anybody else\'s sketch, I\'d never have known what became of her, probably. As it was, I knew nothing until I got back from the Coast.... I believe they got married very shortly after it was produced; and now they\'re playing it all over the country. Odd, isn\'t it?"

"Very," Venetia smiled. "And so your heart wasn\'t broken?"

He shook his head and laughed: "No!"

But a spasm of pain shot through his eyes and deceived the woman a little longer.

"And what have you been doing?" she pursued, meaning to distract him. "I mean, your work?"

He shrugged. "Oh, I\'ve had an average luckless year. To begin with, Rideout fell down on his production of \'The Jade God\'—the only time it ever had a chance to get over—and a man named Algerson bought his contract and put it on at his stock theatre in Los Angeles. That\'s why I went out there—to see it butchered."

&............