“Look here,” said Mr. Wake to Sam, “you and Viola go hunt up some tea, will you--” And Sam said, “Of course,” and stood up. “And show Viola your last picture,” Mr. Wake added, “and _take your time to it_!” “Yes, _Sir_,” said Sam, and very nicely, considering the fact that he and Viola don’t get on very well. After he had gone, Mr. Wake took out his cigarette case and lit a cigarette, and then sat down on the end of a chaise longue. “My dear,” he said, “I’ve a long story to tell you. . . . And you must be kind and remember that it is the first time I have ever told it, and that--the telling it is hard because--I care so--deeply. . . . But I guess you’d best know, and why I don’t want to meet your--your Miss Sheila. I believe you’d best know, for you will wonder why I am so rude, if I don’t explain. . . . The garden, by the way, is the kind Miss Sheila would like because--long, long years ago--when I was young in heart and body--she talked of a garden like this, to me--her lover.” He paused to stare down upon Florence for some moments, and then, after he had drawn a deep breath, he went on. “About twenty years ago,” he said, “when I was a boy, and named Terrence O’Gilvey--and right off the sod, Jane--I came to New York. I had done a bit of writing or two, even then, and I went on a paper; and, because of my Irish manner I think, my little things took. Anyway, the first thing I knew a well-known newspaper man named Ford, and then the Danas and some others began to believe in me and to be kind to me, and I knew I had got hold of the first rung anyway, and I was mighty happy. I thought I was as happy as any man could be until I met Sheila Parrish, and then I was in hell . . . and yet . . . happier than I had ever been before--and, faith, all because I was so deep in love with her! “It was a quick business, Jane. She smiled gently, and I was gone. I wanted to get down and let her use my vest for a doormat; I wanted several other things that might seem extravagant to one of your solid small tread and common sense, but none of them were enough extravagant nor enough of an outlet for all that she had taught me to feel. “Well, she was good to me. And she let me come to see her, and I sent her posies, and I wrote her what I am afraid were rhymes, and no more--but by all the Saints, child, what I felt! And then one day Heaven opened, and she--she stretched out her lovely hands to me, and she said, ‘You are more than a dear Irish boy, Terry; I believe you are a man, and I believe I will listen to your story--’” He stopped speaking, and I put my hand out, and laid it on his--I was _so_ sorry for him! For a moment we sat like this, and then he went on.