The world shone forth to meet them, romantic with frost and lacquered with ice. It was as though the sky had rained molten glass which, spreading out across trees, houses and pavements, had covered them with a skin of burning glory. Eden Row sparkled quaint and old-fashioned as a Christmas card. The river, which followed its length, gleamed like a bared saber. Windows, in the cliff-line of crooked houses, were jewels which glittered smoothly in the sunlight In the park, beyond the river, black boughs of trees were hieroglyphics carved on glaciers of cloud. Chimneys were top-hatted sentinels, crouching above smoldering camp-fires. Overhead the golden gong of the sun hung silent At any moment it seemed that a cloud must strike it and the brittle boom of the impact would mutter through the heavens. It was a world transformed--no longer a prison swung out into the void in which men and women struggled, and misunderstood, and loved and, in their loving, died. Vashti felt for his hand. He wanted to take it and yet---- If he did, people who didn’t understand would think him nothing but a little boy. What he really wanted was to take her arm; he couldn’t reach up to that “Don’t you want to hold it?” He laughed shyly and slipped his fingers softly into hers. As they passed Orchid Lodge, standing flush with the pavement, she glanced up at the second story, where the line of windows commenced. “The people who live there hate me. They’ll hate me more presently. I can’t blame them.” She hurried her steps. Drawing a breath of relief, she whispered, “Look back and tell me whether anybody saw us.” He looked back. Two figures were emerging from the doorway--one excessively fat, the other so lean that he looked like a straight line. “Only the murd---- I mean Mr. Sheerug and Mr. Hughes. I don’t think they saw us.” “That’s all right.” She laughed merrily--not on one note as most people laugh, but all up and down the scale. The sparkle of morning was in her voice. Like a flash out of a happy dream she moved through the ice-cold world. People turned to gaze after her. A policeman, stamping his feet on the look-out for some attractive housemaid, touched his helmet She nodded. “D’you know him?” “Never clapped eyes on him in my life. A pretty woman belongs to the whole world, Teddy.” Butcher boys, hopping down from carts, stood thunderstruck. After she had passed they whistled, giving vent to their approbation. Teddy had the satisfaction of knowing that he was envied; he snuggled his hand more closely into hers. Even Mr. Yaffon, the man who was as faded as a memory, raised dim eyes and shrunk against the wall, stung into painful life. His little dog waddled ahead, doing her best to coax him to come on, trying to say, “None of that, Master. You’ve done it once; please not a second time.”