seemed, and, full of irrational despondency, he sat gazing at the sea.

It was stupid to be so obsessed with the woman. Of course she was married, and her husband was down-stairs with her then. The thought caused an indefinable melancholy to cast a shadow over him. He felt an unfathomable solitude. The warm things of life were not for himardent odors, colored jewels, soft voices, the sense of a bodily presence, kindnesses,

caresses.

Some one ran up-stairs. It was she! "Helena!" a voice shouted from below. "Hullo!" came from above.

"Bring some music down with you." No answer.

"Can you hear?"
"Yes."

"And bring my wrap, will you?"
"Yes."

It was not her husband, after all. Preston was relieved, immensely relieved. Yet what difference did it make? There were two ladies in the room beneath him, but their husbands would be coming over any day. Possibly they were in France.

He had made another discovery: she was Helena. It was a noble name. She must be fair and tall to merit such a name. The chatter went on below, and the peals of laughter became more frequent. It was all so high-spirited, so brimful of vitality, that it made him feel young again.

There was the music, too. For some reasons Preston wished there had been no music. The singer had a sweet voice, a trifle too tremulant, perhaps, but very firm on the high notes. It had color, a certain vividness of color, that suggested a brilliant personality; but he wished she had sung something better than the latest It seemed incompatible for a Helena to be singing that stuff. She might as well be reading penny novelettes at once. The pianist was very poor, indeed, but that was partly the fault of the instrument. In any case, it did n't matter. It was only Helena's companion.

songs.

Preston made no further progress in his discoveries that night.

There was nothing special the following evening. Helena and her friend had been away all day, and it was getting dusk when they returned. They were chattering and laughing with unusual animation in the down-stairs room, and the sound came in at his open window, mingled with. the rhythm of the waves. He could not distinguish what they said, yet he imagined he knew the spirit of their conversation: there had been some diverting escapade that day, due to Helena's impetuosity, no doubt.

Later on they went out of doors and sat at the end of the jetty. Preston could not see what they were like, for it was almost dark; but he saw them as silhouettes against the sea. They were still talking with great eagerness, with swift gestures, and emphatic shakes of the head. He believed they were quarreling. He had no difficulty in deciding which was Helena. Her companion was shorter and plumper, and her temperament was less vivacious. She did not seem the type of woman who would rush headlong up the stairs in the dark. Nor would she say "Oh, desh!" when she collided with a stranger.

So many women, Preston mused, were sedate and dignified. They took their opinions ready-made and lived by social regulation. Helena was Helena was not like that. She was audacious, free-spirited, and inclined to please herself. Her very gestures bespoke a native fund of energy and independence. She would not care a rap what anybody thought. She had a knack of getting into scrapes and doing unconventional things and smashing her way out of difficulties. He wished he could see her face. He was sure she was beautiful. To-morrow, perhaps, he would be able to see her.

The next day was Sunday, and in the morning Helena and her friend went into the sea. They emerged from the house in dressing-gowns and ran down the jetty to the water. Helena's gown was pale blue, and she had a blue bandana cap. Dropping the gown, her bathing-dress was navy-blue, with white braid. The sunlight gleamed like ivory on her limbs.

It was sheer joy to watch Helena take to the water. She literally danced into the sea, as if the very touch of the living waves electrified her whole body. She danced and then dived, and, emerging with powerful side-strokes, swam out an immense distance. Her companion was a good swimmer, but she did not riot in the water as Helena did. They returned eventually, and sat on the beach, enjoying a sun-bath. The next time Preston looked they were in the water again, floating, with hands locked behind the neck. But he never saw them come indoors, and did not see them the rest of the day. At nightfall they sat at the end of the jetty again, -black shapes cut out of cardboard,- and the sound of laughter reached his ears from afar.

Preston did not see them for several days after that. On Wednesday, however, he saw Helena standing back to him in a telephone-box. She had a frock of wonderful color, like the palest of pale carnations. He noticed her big pearl earrings, which shook as she talked through the 'phone. She seemed to be excited, and he heard her saying:

"Look here, I want to know who told you. . . . Are you going to tell me? . .

...

I positively refuse to tell you. . . . Look here, who told you? I insist on knowing. Hullo!"

He went away extraordinarily interested. The fragment of dialogue suggested all sorts of possibilities. No doubt she was in another scrape. It was just like her.

That night they went bathing in the moonlight. Nobody else was in the water, and a small crowd stood watching them. The people seemed to be apprehensive for their safety, but Preston laughed. Helena was not afraid.

Two evenings later, Olwen mentioned Helena for the first time.

"Reg'lar cautions, sir, both of them." "Are n't they rather-well off?" "Tons o' money, sir, but they know how to get through it."

"Well, if they enjoy it—" "Don't they just!"

Preston did not ask anything further. Olwen would have enlightened him readily enough had he prompted her, but he felt an unaccountable reluctance. Olwen might tell him something that might spoil it all. He did not even know her name. For all he knew she might be Mrs. Jenkins or Miss Tomlinson. He wanted to think of her as Helena.

The thought of Helena was an elixir to him. She exhilarated. She made him feel romantic and adventurous. The sense of her proximity was almost an idyll. She was in the room below him at that very moment. He adored her, yet he had never seen her face. He had made the attempt to see her more than once. On this last evening he felt that he never should see her again. She would go away as she came, a mystery.

ence.

He was intensely aware of her existHe wondered if she had been even dimly aware of his. She had made a difference to him, but he could not possibly have made any difference to her. He longed to tell her something,-something vital and splendid,-but such emotions. never shape themselves in speech. They are, as she was, thrilling and elusive.

He remembered his piano. He had never opened it since the first evening she arrived, and then he could find nothing to play. But he wanted to play now, if only to declare himself, to make his great affirmation, and bid her good-by. He looked across the sea where the first star of evening, lovely and lustrous, was spilling drops of light. He gazed at it in wonder; it had never been so bewitchingly beautiful before. He sat down to the piano and

"Indeed?"

"We'll be a bit quieter again when they 've gone.'

"They seem pretty lively, don't they?"

ser." Never until that hour had he felt its passionate ecstasy and pain.

He went on without a pause, extemporizing. He found articulation in music. He became aware of the beauty that leaps

and dances, that maddens with perfumes, and dazes with colors, the rapturous loveliness of the flesh, the glowing perception of animal vitality, audacity, the fearless spirit, the elusiveness of laughter, and of his impotence and desolation.

It cannot be put into language what he put into chords. Night fell upon the earth and sea in deepening tones of blue, but he still played in an ache of exultation. The big star grew whiter and more ravishing. From the room below came no sound.

He had always despised bodily beauty as something temporary; he knew then

that it alone was immortal. Three things possessed his soul: the sense of infinite time that came from the unresting sea, the sense of infinite space that came from the brilliant star, the sense of illimitable beauty and unfathomable hunger. He had never seen her face, he had never heard her name; but he told her that he, too, was a man. The male cried out to the female the ancient cry older than the sea, younger than the star.

Next day she was gone.

Now at last he could give his whole mind to the treatise on "Dynamical Isomerism."