Has not a passage like this--with its freedom of invocation--a beauty unattainable by serious literature? It is so funny and charming, so iridescent yet so profound. Criticisms of human nature fly through the book, not like arrows but upon the wings of sylphs. Towards the end--that dreadful end often so fatal to fiction--the book rather flags: the suicide of all the undergraduates of Oxford is not as delightful as it ought to be when viewed at close quarters, and the defenestration of Noaks almost nasty. Still it is a great work--the most consistent achievement of fantasy in our time, and the closing scene in Zuleika's bedroom with its menace of further disasters is impeccable. And now with pent breath and fast-beating heart, she stared at the lady of the mirror, without seeing her; and now she wheeled round and swiftly glided to that little table on which stood her two books. She snatched Bradshaw. We always intervene between Bradshaw and any one whom we see consulting him. "Mademoiselle will permit me to find that which she seeks?" asked Melisande. "Be quiet," said Zuleika. We always repulse, at first, any one who intervenes between us and Bradshaw. We always end by accepting the intervention. "See if it is possible to go direct from here to Cambridge," said Zuleika, handing the book on. "If it isn't, then--well, see how one _does_ get there." We never have any confidence in the intervener. Nor is the intervener, when it comes to the point, sanguine. With mistrust mounting to exasperation Zuleika sat watching the faint and frantic researches of her maid. "Stop!" she said suddenly. "I have a much better idea. Go down very early to the station. See the stationmaster. Order me a special train. For ten o'clock, say." Rising, she stretched her arms above her head. Her lips parted in a yawn, met in a smile. With both hands she pushed back her hair from her shoulders, and twisted it into a loose knot. Very lightly she slipped up into bed, and very soon she was asleep. So Zuleika ought to have come on to this place. She does not seem ever to have arrived and we can only suppose that through the intervention of the gods her special train failed to start, or, more likely, is still in a siding at Bletchley.