“And you honour and respect her--just as you would honour and respect Maisie?” I asked quietly. “Of course I do!” he flashed. “Don't I tell you that you know nothing whatever about her? She is the dearest, sweetest----” etc., etc. And he continued to trumpet forth the Olympian qualities of the Syren and his own fervent adoration. I was the only being to whom he had opened his heart, and, the floodgates being set free, the torrent burst forth in this tempestuous and incoherent manner. I let him go on, for I thought it did him good; but his rhapsody added very little to my information. The lady who had “houp-la'd” her way from Dublin to Yokohama was the spotless queen of beauty, and Dale was frenziedly, idiotically in love with her. That was all I could gather. When he had finished, which he did somewhat abruptly, he threw himself into a chair and took out his cigarette-case with shaky fingers. “There. I suppose I've made a damn-fool exhibition of myself,” he said, defiantly. “What have you got to say about it?” “Precisely,” I replied, “what I said before. I'll repeat it, if you like.” Indeed, what more was there to say for the present about the lunatic business? I had come to the end of my arguments. He reflected for a moment, then rose and came over to the fireplace. “Look here, Simon, you must let me go my own way in this. In matters of politics and worldly wisdom and social affairs and honourable dealing and all that sort of thing I would follow you blindly. You're my chief, and a kind of elder brother as well. I would do any mortal thing for you. You know that. But you've no right to try to guide me in this matter. You know no more about it than my mother. You've had no experience. You've never let yourself go about a woman in your life. Lord of Heaven, man, you have never begun to know what it means!” Oh, dear me! Here was the situation as old as the return of the Prodigal or the desertion of the trusting village maiden, or any other cliche in the melodrama of real life. “You are making a fool of yourself,” says Mentor. “Ah,” shrieks Telemachus, “but you never loved! You don't know what love is.” I looked at him whimsically. “Don't I?” My thoughts sped back down the years to a garden in France. Her name was Clothilde. We met in a manner outrageous to Gallic propriety, as I used to climb over the garden wall to the peril of my epidermis. We loved. We were parted by stern parents--not mine--and Clothilde was packed off to the good Sisters who had previously had care of her education. Now she is fat and happy, and the wife of a banker and the mother of children.