How tall and white it was, just like Mr. Ripple's hand, smooth and white and exquisitely shaped. Outside, the grey weather mellowed the ivory of the room. There was a curious stillness as of frost, and she watched the reflection of the fire leaping in opalescent miniature about the high windows. There was a new spinet, set at an angle to the rest of the furniture, in a case of light-coloured wood, painted with cupids, zephyrs and roses, all waxen-pale. The tall, quiet chamber began to depress her spirits, so that she felt compelled to strike the extreme treble note of the spinet which through the stillness rang out like the unwonted pipe of a bird in a hot August woodland. At last, Phyllida, whose whole body was beginning to tingle with the effort of waiting in such breathless quiet, heard some one coming upstairs. Gog, the Beau's diminutive negro, entered with a silver tray; on which small and shining lake swam coffee cups like swans or fairy shells. The Great little Man followed close upon the dusky heels of his squire and soon Phyllida found herself sipping her coffee in easy conversation with the King of Curtain Wells. "Do you know the, Maze? he was asking. "Oh yes," said Phyllida. "A pleasant spot, cool and green." "It is indeed." "I often sit there," said the Beau. "'Tis a pleasant spot." "Less fortunate than my poetick namesake, I have no plane-tree there, no long-buried Falernian; but I am unjust to my time, for, after all, I have Curtain Garden and Chalybeate that springs from the depths of earth," continued the Beau, half to himself. Phyllida was not quite sure what he was talking about, but agreed politely. "My dear Miss Courteen," said the Beau suddenly, "may I say something very abrupt and perhaps intolerably free, but nevertheless something which I feel ought to be said?" "Oh yes, sir," Phyllida replied, wishing devoutly that she was well out of this tall, white room. "My dear Miss Courteen," he went on, "I am a man who knows something of life on its merely social side. I have been an observer, if I may say so, a naturalist of humanity. My self-chosen attitude has forbidden me all passion, save that which is the recognized privilege of an audience. Of love I am supposed to know nothing, save in that third person whose company is unwelcome and superfluous. Perhaps my devotion to the _Odes_ has led me to see too many Lalages, too many Lyces. Perhaps I regard women too much as roses that bloom, scatter their sweets and die. In a word, perhaps I am unsympathetick." "I don't think you are at all, sir," cried Phyllida, surprized by her own boldness. "Thank you," said the Beau, with the merest hint of a tremour in his equable voice.