"Time _is_ the arch-deceiver. It drives things past us in a hurrying flock. We snatch at them. And those we miss seem lost for ever because some one calls out, in a foolish voice of terror and regret, 'Too late!' Yet, in reality, _we_ stand still; the rush of the hours is a sham. We see things out of proportion, like trees from the window of a train, their beauty hidden in a long, thick smudge. _We_ do not move; it is the train that hurries us along: the trees are always steadily there--and beautiful. There is enough of everything for everybody--no need to try and get there first. To hurry is to chase your tail, which some one has suggested does not belong to you. It can never be captured by pursuit. But pause--stand still--it instantly presents itself, twitches its tip, and laughs: 'I've been here all the time. I'm part of you!'" He turned towards the empty chair and smiled. The smile, he felt, came marvellously back to him from the sunshine and the open world of sky and trees beyond. There was some one there who smiled--invisibly. "You're real, quite real," the letters danced instantly into new sentences. "But you are so awfully close to me--so close I cannot see you." He felt the invisible Stranger suddenly as real as that. There was only one thing to see--only one thing everywhere. The beauty of the discovery put reason utterly and finally to flight. But that one thing was hiding. The Stranger concealed himself--he hid on purpose. He wanted to be looked for--found. And the heart grew "warm" or "cold" accordingly: when it was warm that mysterious anticipation stirred--"Some one is coming!" And Uncle Felix, sitting in the sunlight of that breakfast-room, understood that the entire universe formed a conspiracy to hide "him." Some one, indeed, had come, slipped into the gorgeous and detailed clothing of the entire world as easily as birds and trees slip into their own particular clothing, planning with Time to hide him, wanting to play a little--to play at Hide-and-Seek. "Let them all look for me! I'm hiding!..." Yet so few would play! Instead of coming out to find him where he hid so simply in the open, they built severe and gloomy edifices; invented Rules of the game by which each could prove himself right and all the others wrong.... Oh, dear!... And all the time, _he_ hid there in the open before their very eyes--in the wind, the stream, the grass, in the sunlight and the song of birds, and especially behind little careless things that took no thought ... waiting to play and let himself be found... while songs and poems and fairy-tales, even religious too, cried endlessly across the world, "Look and you'll find him." There _was_ only one thing to say: "Search in the open; he hides there!"