“By Jove! Cynthia!” Her heart leaped from January to June. She turned her head slightly to face the obtruder—a delicate, fine-looking man with the eyes of a poet, and a chin which it would do some poets good to have. It took a moment for them to get over the memory of the last time they had met. It had begun to rain a little, and people had put up their umbrellas and pushed on more rapidly than ever. “What do you want?” he asked, looking from the girl to the window. “What can you afford?” said Cynthia, laughing. She was wondering what people wanted to hurry for on such a lovely day. “I am very rich,” he responded. “Honor bright! I could buy over the business. I sold my last picture for—I can’t tell you how much, it might stir up your demon of independence. I’m going to get you the roses.” In two minutes he came back with them in his hand. “By the way, you might as well put up your umbrella, mightn’t you, it seems to be raining?” he said. “Oh, so it is,” said Cynthia absently. They stood together uncomfortably, knowing that if no good excuse arose they would have to part. “Don’t you think a cup of tea would be nice?” he suggested. Cynthia nodded her head decisively. “Yes,” she said, “and muffins.” “Do you remember,” said her companion, as they turned towards a possible restaurant “those dear little French cakes and——” “I don’t remember anything,” said Cynthia sternly, “and I’m not going to.” Leslie Damores laughed. “You even forgot,” he said teasingly, “just now that it was raining!” “I thought you were in France. I didn’t know you were ever coming back to England again,” said Cynthia a little doubtfully. She noticed that he had not asked her what she was doing, and it hurt her. She would volunteer no information. They sat down by a clean table in a warm inner room; neat-capped maids fluttered here and there; it was very restful and very English. To the artist who had not been in England for eight years it was home, and the girl who held the roses in her lap filled in the picture. He studied her face carefully. “You’re awfully changed,” he said at last. Cynthia laughed. “I was twenty-two when I saw you last, and now I am thirty. I was never one of the dimpling kind that stay young either; as for you—you’re a man, so it’s different. But”—her voice grew strangely gentle—“you’re not quite the same, you know, Leslie; fame has come to you, and you look more of a fighter, and yet not quite so hard.” “Strange, isn’t it, that youth should be so exacting—with its impossible whites and blacks—and that the more one roughs it, and the harder knocks one gets, the more generously shaded it all becomes,” he said, watching her with keen, eager eyes. She turned her head away and played restlessly with the flowers in her lap. “It could never change as much as that,” she thought.