John Ryder told stories of Australian mine and ranch to the girl with the sparkling eyes and the eager face: talked, as he had never within his memory talked to anyone, of his own experiences, ambitions, hopes, ideals; and Belinda, radiant, charming, beamed upon him across the flowers and urged him on. Once she pinched herself softly under cover of the table. Surely it was too good to be true, after the gloom of the morning. It was a dream: a violet-scented, French-cookery-flavoured dream spun around a handsome man with frank, admiring eyes and a masterful way. But the dream endured. They were late for the theatre, but that made little difference. Neither was alone, forlorn, homesick. That was all that really counted. After the theatre came a drive, fresh violets, despite all protest, an elaborate supper, which was only an excuse for comradeship. As the time slipped by a shadow crept into John Ryder's eyes, his laugh became less frequent. He stopped telling stories and contented himself with asking occasional questions and watching the girl across the table, who took up the conversation as he let it fall and juggled merrily with it, although the colour crept into her cheeks as her eyes met the gray eyes that watched her with some vague problem stirring in their depths. "We must go," she said at last. John Ryder pushed his coffee-cup aside, rose, and wrapped her cloak around her, without a word. Still silent, he put her into the cab and took a seat beside her. "I shall go to-night," he said after a little. "Go? Where?" Belinda's voice was surprised, regretful. The man looked down at her. "It's a good deal better. I belong out there. There's no place for me here, unless----" He stopped and shook his head impatiently. "I'd better go. I'd only make a fool of myself if I stayed. I'll run up and spend a day with the girls and then I'll hit the trail for the ranch again. I'll be contented out there--perhaps. There's something here that gets into a man's veins and makes him want things he can't have." "I'm sorry," Belinda murmured vaguely. "It's been very nice, hasn't it?" He laid a large hand over her small ones. "Nice--that's a poor sort of a word, little girl." The cab stopped before the school door. The two Christmas comrades went slowly up the steps and stood for a moment in the dark doorway. "You are surely going?" "Yes, I'm going." "You've been very good to me. I shall remember to-day----" "And I." He put a hand on each of her shoulders. "I'm forty-five and I'm--a fool. You've given me a happy day, little girl, but some way or other I'm more homesick than ever. I've had a vision--and I think I shall always be homesick now. Good-by. God bless you!" Belinda climbed the stairs to her room with a definite sense of loss in her heart. "Still," she admitted to herself, as she put the violets in water, "he was forty-five." CHAPTER VI THE BLIGHTED BEING