A rather sensuous boy perhaps! One, certainly, for whom the actual colour, the physical charm of life, of the visible world, meant much. A gentle boy too; warm-hearted, loving and happy, innocent and pure.... The visible world!――was it not almost sentient? From the trees and the sky, from the restless sea and the wind had emerged, at any rate, that imaginary playmate who had made his life beautiful; the messenger of Eros; the fair boy who had come to him from his strange garden, his meadow of asphodel. And then――he had gone to school. II They had indeed often discussed it. It had been perpetually there――a source of wonder and many questions――a thing which hovered and danced, drew near and retreated, a thing which could be referred to at any moment without notice or introduction, a kind of enchanted castle which grew up into the sky with lightning-like rapidity, and as quickly vanished. It had not been, however, until he was close on sixteen that the decisive step had been actually taken, that the vision had given place to reality. His father brought him and departed again, leaving Graham with a sinking heart in the midst of his new world. How dreadfully different from anything he had ever known it was all going to be! For the first time in his life he felt thoroughly miserable. Yet, in a way, he was to be singularly fortunate. Far sooner than might have been expected he dropped into his new life. He had never, of course, played either cricket or football, but he was naturally strong and agile, and in the former game he now made rapid progress. It was then that he learned how ready his new companions were with their praise and encouragement. If he had known more of the world, indeed, he might have marvelled not a little at his almost immediate popularity, for doubtless, at first, he could not but have seemed ‘rather queer’ to the others. Nevertheless they liked him, liked to be with him, and if they occasionally found him alarmingly innocent――well! somehow, it was only charming that he should be so. To be sure he _was_, now and again, made fun of in a way; but that way was quite the kindliest in the world, the very opposite from the way they might have taken had they been so minded, had their desire been to hurt, to torment him.