Presently he made a movement to light a cigar. Nothing now was visible in the room save, very faintly, the broken statue, an antique version of the famous Spinario, which his father had come by, he knew not how, long ago, in one of his many wanderings through Greece. And it came suddenly into Graham’s mind that this statue was the centre from which everything had radiated; the touchstone around which his whole life had revolved. _It_ was the beginning, then――the starting point. And yet――had it only begun with his life here? Had it not been before?... Two thousand years ago?... But the veil had descended――he could not see. This Greek boy, at all events, had been his secret playmate throughout his childhood, the companion who had shared his numerous adventures, the companion of his dreams――day-dreams and sleeping-dreams. And his mind leapt back to the dawn of his life. He had been brought up by his father (his mother had died in giving him birth), brought up here, in this house; and until he had gone to school he had had no friend of his own age. His father had himself undertaken his education, had taught him to read Greek at an age when most boys are stumbling through the first page of their grammar, and before Graham had ever heard of either Shakespeare or Milton, he had read again and again many of the writings of Sophocles and Plato. Given such influences――his unconventional upbringing, his ignorance of the world, his beautiful surroundings――was it a wonder that that strange faculty for dreaming with which he had been born should have been perfected――perfected until in broad daylight he would slip unconsciously from one world to the other, and gravely tell his father of marvellous happenings, fantastic adventures, which never could have taken place? Yes, there had been magic influences at work in that sleepy garden, in those broad, soft lawns and quiet trees,――a magic, above all, in the dim rich music of the sea.