“Won’t you smoke? These Chian cigarettes in their diaphanous paper of mildest mauve would suit your oddly remote, your curiously shy glance. You had better not smoke so near to the savage confines of St. James’ School? How ascetic! How stringent! What book shall I buy for you, O greatly to be envied dreamer of Sicilian dreams? Shall I buy you Mademoiselle de Maupin, so that all her rococo soul may dance with gilded limbs across your vision? Or shall I buy you A Rebours, and teach you to live? And yet I think neither would suit you perfectly. So here is a volume of Pater—Imaginary Portraits. You will like to read of Denys l’Auxerrois. One day I myself will write an imaginary portrait of you, wherein your secret, sidelong smile will reveal to the world the whole art of youth.” “But really—thanks very much,” stammered Michael, who was beginning to suspect the stranger of madness—“it’s awfully kind of you, but, really, I think I’d rather not.” “Do not be proud,” said Mr. Wilmot. “Pride is for the pure in heart, and you are surely not pure in heart. Or are you? Are you indeed like one of those wonderful white statues of antiquity, unaware of the soul with all its maladies?” In the end, so urgent was Mr. Wilmot, Michael accepted the volume of Pater, and walked with the stranger through the foggy night. Somehow the conversation was so destructive of all experience that, as Michael and his new friend went by the school-gates and perceived beyond the vast bulk of St. James’ looming, Michael felt himself a stranger to it all, as if he never again would with a crowd of companions surge out from afternoon school. The stranger came as far as the corner of Carlington Road with Michael. “I will write to your mother and ask her to let you dine with me one night next week. You interest me so much.” Mr. Wilmot waved a pontifical good-bye and vanished in the direction of Kensington. At home Michael told his mother of the adventure. She looked a little doubtful at his account of Mr. Wilmot. “Oh, he’s all right, really, Mother. Only, you know, a little peculiar. But then he’s a poet.” Next day came a letter from Mr. Wilmot. 205 Edwardes Square, W. _November._ _Dear Mrs. Fane,_