position is a little embarrassing—it is hard to explain.... “Strange,” said Gumbril, “to think that those ridiculous creatures could have produced what we’ve just been hearing.” The poached eye of Sclopis lighted on Emily, flushed and ardently applauding. He gave her, all to herself, a weary smile. He would have a letter, he guessed, to-morrow morning signed ‘Your little Admirer in the Third Row.’ She looked a choice little piece. He smiled again to encourage her. Emily, alas! had not even noticed. She was applauding the music. “Did you enjoy it?” he asked, as they stepped out into a deserted Bond Street. “Did I...?” Emily laughed expressively. “No, I didn’t enjoy,” she said. “Enjoy isn’t the word. You enjoy eating ices. It made me happy. It’s unhappy music, but it made me happy.” Gumbril hailed a cab and gave the address of his rooms in Great Russell Street. “Happy,” he repeated, as they sat there side by side in the darkness. He, too, was happy. “Where are we going?” she asked. “To my rooms,” said Gumbril, “we shall be quiet there.” He was afraid she might object to going there—after yesterday. But she made no comment. “Some people think that it’s only possible to be happy if one makes a noise,” she said, after a pause. “I find it’s too delicate and melancholy for noise. Being happy is rather melancholy—like the most beautiful landscape, like those trees and the grass and the clouds and the sunshine to-day.” “From the outside,” said Gumbril, “it even looks rather dull.” They stumbled up the dark staircase to his rooms. Gumbril lit a pair of candles and put the kettle on the gas ring. They sat together on the divan sipping tea. In the rich, soft light of the candles she looked different, more beautiful. The silk of her dress seemed wonderfully rich and glossy, like the petals of a tulip, and on her face, on her bare arms and neck the light seemed to spread an impalpable bright bloom. On the wall behind them, their shadows ran up towards the ceiling, enormous and profoundly black. “How unreal it is,” Gumbril whispered. “Not true. This remote secret room. These lights and shadows out of another time. And you out of nowhere and I, out of a past utterly remote from yours, sitting together here, together—and being happy. That’s the strangest thing of all. Being quite senselessly happy. It’s unreal, unreal.” “But why,” said Emily, “why? It’s here and happening now. It _is_ real.” “It all might vanish, at any moment,” he said. Emily smiled rather sadly. “It’ll vanish in due time,” she said. “Quite naturally, not by magic; it’ll vanish the way everything else vanishes and changes. But it’s here now.”