“I have something to show you,” he remarked quietly. “But before I show it to you, I want to tell you a very short story. Three years ago I was in the back of beyond in Brazil. I’d got a bad dose of fever, and the gassing I got in France wasn’t helping matters. It was touch and go whether I pulled through or not. And one day one of the fellows got a two-month-old _Tatler_. In that _Tatler_ was a picture—a picture of the loveliest girl I have ever seen. I tore it out, and I propped it up at the foot of my bed. I think I worshipped it; I certainly fell in love with it. There is the picture.” He handed it to her, and she looked at it in silence. It was of herself, and after a moment or two she raised her eyes to his. “Go on,” she said gently. “A few months ago I came back to England. I found a seething cauldron of discontent; men out of work—strikes—talk of revolution. And this was the country for which a million of our best had died. I also found—week after week—my picture girl displayed in every paper, as if no such thing as trouble existed. She, in her motor-car, cared for none of these things.” “That is unjust,” said the girl, and her voice was low. “I knew it was unjust,” answered the man, “but I couldn’t help it. And if I couldn’t help it—I who loved her—what of these others? It seemed symbolical to me.” “Nero fiddling,” said the girl, with a faint smile. “You’re rather a strange person, Mr. Brooke. Am I to understand that you’re in love with me?” “You are not. I’m in love with the you of that picture.” “I see. You have set up an image. And supposing that image is a true one.” “Need we discuss that?” said the man, with faint sarcasm. The girl shrugged her shoulders. “The supposition is at least as possible as that you are doing any vast amount of good for the seething cauldron of discontent, I think you called it, by breeding Aberdeens in the country. I’m afraid you’re a crank, Mr. Brooke, and not a very consistent one at that. And a crank is to my mind synonymous with a bore.” The man replaced the picture in his desk. “Then perhaps we had better join Mrs. Laverton,” he remarked. “I apologise for having wearied you.” In silence they went out into the garden, to find Ada Laverton wandering aimlessly round looking for them. “Where have you two been?” she demanded, as she saw them approaching. “Mr. Brooke has been showing me a relic of his past,” said Lady Cynthia. “Most interesting and touching. Are you ready to go, Ada?” Mrs. Laverton gave a quick glance at their two faces, and wondered what had happened. Not much, surely, in so short a time—and yet with Cynthia you never could tell. The Hermit’s face, usually so inscrutable, showed traces of suppressed feeling; Cynthia’s was rather too expressionless. “Are you coming to the ball to-morrow night, Hermit?” she asked. “I didn’t know there was one on, Mrs. Laverton,” he answered. “The cricket ball, my good man,” she exclaimed. “It’s been advertised for the last month.”