And Mr. Waters said he preferred his flowers _fresh_; adding bluntly that he loathed all those miserable minor wails himself, and quite agreed with that law which Queen Elizabeth passed for the Irish bards of her time, sentencing them to death if they composed songs on any subject whatsoever except in praise of the Queen’s most Excellent Majesty. That brought back some of Sydney’s first pose. With a pained little smile he turned to me, then, putting on just the expression of the bereaved collie in Landseer’s “Shepherd’s Chief Mourner,” he asked me if I _happened_ to have kept the MS. of that little thing he’d written for me to that sonnet—“_Kissing her Hair, I sat against her Feet_.” I felt myself flushing up to the roots of my own wretched hair that he’d always so praised ... there was something about kissing of hair which _he_ knew nothing of, and that I was only too thankful to let die a natural death.... Rather shortly, I answered, “Oh, that song—yes; it’s tucked away in some drawer or other here, I believe.” “If it wouldn’t be troubling you too much, Miss Trant, to lend it to me again? It was my only copy,” suggested Sydney softly (_con molto espressione_). “Of course,” said I. “I’ll find it for you now. Cicely, you might come into my room and help me to hunt.” Cicely followed me, leaving those two men to entertain each other. How they proceeded to do so I suppose I shall never know! “Well, Cis, how are you getting on?” I asked her, when the door was closed between us and them. “Foot’s all right, I see, and you said you’d gone back to work?” “Yes, but not at Chérisette’s, you know; I’m working opposite in Bond Street; Madame Lamaire’s. Mr. Vandeleur got me an introduction from his married sister, who knows her; and I’m getting a better salary, and such a much better time, there. He has been so awfully kind, Tots!” “Has he? Have you—been seeing a good deal of him, then?” “He’s been here several times, but”—reproachfully—“only to talk about you!” “Good of him,” I said. Cicely looked more reproach. “Well, he says you’ve taken all the colour out of his life and left ‘_gold tarnished and the grey above the green_.’” “Drat him! And his colours!” I quoted Mrs. Skinner vulgarly and vindictively. “He’d plenty of them left in his tie, anyhow.” “I am afraid,” said Cecily aloofly and with a pointed comparison in her face, “that you’ve scarcely _realized_ Mr. Vandeleur.” “Haven’t I? Well, the sort of man who, when he’s turned down by one girl, must needs rush and pour it all out into the shell-like ear of the next——” But I broke off here. What I suddenly did realize was that, for next to no reason, I was on the brink of squabbling ridiculously with my chum. So I hastily changed the subject to rent-money and the length of time I should probably be away, caught up Sydney’s ever-to-be-hated song, reassured Cicely that I was not going to be married until after the summer—_long_ after! and told her I was glad she was getting on so well.