"I tell you I wrote it. I tell you I'm Philip Wriford." The young woman's departure permitted Essie to relieve her laughter. "Oh, Arthur, do not!" she cried. "I tell you it's true." He turned to the opening chapter and began with very strange sensations to read what he had written in days separated from the present by illimitable gulfs of new identity. The cunning of his own hand, thus separated from the identity that now read the words, was abundantly apparent to him. There was a nervous and arresting force in the first paragraph, a play of wit above a searching philosophy, that called up and strongly attracted his literary appreciation, dormant beneath the stresses of his past months. Occupied, for the moment he forgot Essie standing by his side. Her voice recalled her to him. She was reading over his shoulder, and reaching the end of the paragraph, spoke her opinion. "Isn't it silly, though!" said Essie. He closed the book and put it down and turned to her and looked at her. "Do you think so?" he said. "Well, don't you?" cried Essie. "I never read such ridiculous nonsense. I'm sure if you were an author, Arthur, you couldn't write such silly stuff as that." He laughed a trifle vexedly. "Come along," he said, and laughed again, this time to himself and with better humour, as they came into the street and turned towards the Gardens. He could appreciate the blow at his conceit: further, this little scene was illuminating demonstration of the gulf social and intellectual between himself and Essie, and somehow that approved him in his intentions towards her: what vexed him now was only the failure of this sudden plan to inform Essie of his position in life and so to give him opening for the proposal he intended. The bookseller's was the last shop in the High Street. They had entered the Gardens before Essie, consumed with laughter, could find words for comment. Then she said: "Oh, Arthur, if you weren't a fair caution! I'd never have thought it of you!" "You don't believe it?" "Why, of course I don't!" "Well, you've got to believe somehow that I've got a lot of money." "Daresay I can believe the moon is made of green cheese if I try hard enough. I say, though, serious, whatever for have I got to believe you're rich?" It was the desired opening. He slipped his hand beneath her arm. "Because I want to spend it on you, Essie. I want to make you happy with me." He felt and heard her sharply catch her breath. He looked down at her and saw her eyes dim and her face suffuse in sudden rush of colour. "Oh, Arthur!" Essie said and caught her breath again. "Let's go up to our seat, Essie." IV