But afar off, as from some half-forgotten world, he seemed to hear the mellow, golden patterning of bells, bells weaving their intricate spell of beauty about another city than this dark Babel, a City of grave spires and a curving street and quiet immemorial lanes.… “No, _carissima_,” he smiled at her with the true ffoulis charm. “No. Your body is beautiful. But my soul is beautiful. We can never, never understand each other.” He expected to see this flotsam-flower of London shuffle off into the Suburran[12] darkness. But she answered: [12] Suburban? (LIT. EXEC.). “Oh, I say!” and there was petulance in her tone. “Don’t try to come that over _me_! Soma and psyche indeed! D’you think _I_ don’t know my Plotinus Arbiter? You can’t quote that stuff at this child. D’you read him too?” “Oh, off and on,” Gav replied. “Fancy that now! This _is_ a bit of luck. Oh, _we_ shall get on all right. You know Joseph de Maistre’s essay, of course?” “Which?” he asked guardedly. There might be some trap in this. “Oh, the Arbiter’s influence on the Transcendentalist poets--you know.” “Afraid I haven’t read it,” confessed Gav. “You haven’t missed much, _rum-ti-tum_, as Marie Lloyd used to sing, but I’ll lend it you if you’re keen. I say, you know,” she went on hurriedly, “I’d a bit o’ luck yesterday. You know that 1642 edition--Amsterdam? Picked up a copy of that, tooled leather and all the woodcuts, but the back flyleaf just a bit soiled. Eight quid. Cheap, wasn’t it?” “He’s your favourite author, I suppose?” he ventured. “Was once, Mr. Inquisitive. No, I must say I’ve been rather off old Plo since the Bloomsbury push took him up so strong. I’m on the Hellenic tack now--Pelester of Chios, you know, and Xanthus the Younger, and the fragments of the Thracian papyrus that Bötzdorff edited--though I don’t think much of _his_ gloss, str--th I don’t.” “I must show you my Plotinus,” Gav broke in on her gathering enthusiasm. “It’s a fine copy. 1722, I think.” “My G--dn--ss! 1722! Printed at Venice, I s’pose: Palestrine fount and borders by Manucci.… I know the sort. Bless your innocent heart! _that’s_ no b----y good! Common as dirt, these are. If _that’s_ all you know about the Arbiter, you’re no good to me. So ta-ta, _caro incognito_!” She turned angrily on her heel. “But here!” he caught her by the sleeve. “Take this, I beg as a favour--a token to remember our little meeting.” Gaveston slipped from his finger the exquisite cameo of Cypriote turquoise that the old Duchesa da Chianti had bequeathed him, and quickly but tactfully wrapping it in a ten-pound note, he pressed it into her little quivering palm.[13] [13] See note, page 74. (LIT. EXEC.) She disappeared.