“‘Laki?’” he said, seating himself in his revolving chair and whirling around to the desk, while Atkinson threw himself upon the bed, “‘Laki?’ Oh, I had forgotten. It’s probably here.” He pulled over the mail accumulated during his absence. “Yes.” He tore open the big envelope. “‘The editor of _The Æon_ regrets to say,’ etc.;” and he tossed the printed slip, with the manuscript, into his waste-basket, with a laugh. Atkinson’s heart sank. Poor Darnel; it was not a cheerful welcome home. But Darnel was busied with his letters. “And here are the others,” he went on. “I thank the Lord none of them were accepted.” “What!” exclaimed Philander, turning upon his elbow. Darnel looked at him with a puzzling smile. “That’s why I sent for you,” said he. “Phil, all that I’ve been writing here for three years is stuff, and I’ve only just found it out. I can do something different now.” Atkinson stared. Darnel had rarely talked about his own work, and then in a scarcely suppressed fever of excitement and anxiety. Many a time had Atkinson noticed his big hollow eyes turn darker, and his sallow face grow ashy, even in reading over with a shaking voice some of that same “stuff.” “I have learned the great secret,” Darnel added, quietly. “You have Aladdin’s ring?” said Atkinson. “Or are you in love?” “Both,” replied Darnel. “It is the same thing.” Philander flung himself back upon the pillow, with a little laugh. “Go ahead, D.” “I have found her, and myself. Let me turn down the gas a little; I see it hurts your eyes. I belong in the world now; I am in the heart of it—I said to myself coming down the river this afternoon—in the heart of the world.” He lingered over the words. “Phil,” he exclaimed, suddenly, “all the time I was trying to write I was really trying to lift myself by the boot-straps. I was laboring to imagine things and people, and to get them on paper. It was all wrong. Do you remember that French poem you read me last winter, about the idol and the Eastern princess—how she lay on her couch sleeping—the night was hot—with the bronze idol gazing at her with its porphyry eyes, while her brown bosom rose and sank in her sleep, and the porphyry eyes kept staring at her—staring—but they never saw? Well, I believe my eyes have been like that. In ‘Laki,’ now, you know I wanted to describe the exact color of the stone in the quarry, and asked the Egyptologist up at the Museum to tell me what it was? He laughed at me. Very well. It was a dull-red stone, with bright-red streaks across it; I saw the same thing in Troy this afternoon, when a hod-carrier fell five stories and they picked him up from a pile of bricks.” “You’re getting rather realistic,” muttered Philander. Darnel was not looking at him, and went on unheeding.