And now suddenly she had died--died, it might be, only a few days too soon. That face, that peerless face, was lost for ever to the world of art--his ideal snatched away by the relentless hand of fate. He mourned as only a sculptor can mourn. Thus it came about that something stronger than himself impelled him to manifest his grief. Despite Andrea's respectful but insistent remonstrances as to the appalling outlay, the wreath of camellias was ordered and dispatched. An artist's tribute.... It created both surprise and a most excellent impression. What a gentleman he was! Always doing the right thing. How splendid of him. So they reasoned, though the wiser ones added that if he had known the deceased lady a little better he might have hit upon a more sensible way of spending his money. The fact that there was a good deal of social gossip like this, that appointments for picnics and other functions were being made, would go alone to prove the advantages of a funeral of this kind, quite apart from the universal relief experienced when the coffin was lowered into the earth, and bystanders realized that the lady was at last definitely transferred into Abraham's bosom. CHAPTER XXXIV All Nepenthe had stood by the side of the grave--all, save only Mr. Keith. He remained at home. And this was rather odd, for it is the right thing to attend people's funerals, and Mr. Keith prided himself upon always doing the right thing. It was his boast to pass for a typical Anglo-Saxon, the finest race on earth, when all is said and done; and he used to point out that you could not be a typical Anglo-Saxon unless you respected yourself, and you could not respect yourself unless you respected simultaneously your neighbours and their habits, however perverse they might sometimes appear. Now a funeral, being unavoidable, cannot by an prestidigitations of logic be called perverse. All the more reason for being present. But for a strange twist or kink in his nature, therefore, he would have been on the spot. He would have turned up in the market-place to the minute, since he prided himself likewise upon his love of punctuality, declaring that it was one of the many virtues he possessed in common with Her Majesty Queen Victoria. He disliked funerals. For all his open mind and open bowels, Mr. Keith displayed an unreasoning hatred of death and, what was still more remarkable, not the least shame in confessing it.