To Let

d been expected on Wednesday; had wired that it would be Friday; and again on Friday that it would be Sunday afternoon; and here were her aunt, and her cous

ssionist chaps. He was wondering whether Profond would take them off his hands-the fellow seemed not to know what to do with hi

id dryly; "I gave f

made like that even

laugh. "You didn't com

olyon's boy is staying

spun

ha

's gone to live with them th

as he walked up and down. "I warned Val that neith

t you tell

ged her substa

've always spoiled her. Besides

chief, Fleur's eyes, her questions, and now this delay in her return-the symptoms

that old matter. It's no good thinking that girls in these days are as they used to

omposed, passed a sort of spa

s head. Unless there was absolute necessity the thought that his ado

not yet. Never i

dear. Think wh

muttered Soames, "outside our f

quietness of which Montague Dartie had deprived her in her youth.

me of my pictures at my death. But if the nation is going to bait me, and rob me like this, I'm damned if I won't sell the-lot. They can't have my private property and my public spirit-both." He brooded in this fashion for several months till one morning, after reading the speech of a certain statesman, he telegraphed to his agent to come down and bring Bodkin. On going over the collection Bodkin, than whose opinion on market values none was more sought, pronounced that with a free hand to sell to America, Germany, and other places where there was an interest in art, a lot more money could be made than by selling in England. The noble owner's public spirit-he said-was well known but the pictures were unique. The noble owner put this opinion in his pipe and smoked it for a year. At the end of that time he read another speech by the same statesman, and telegraphed to his agents: "Give Bodkin a free hand." It was at this juncture that Bodkin conceived the idea which salved the Goya and two other unique pictures for the native country of the noble owner. With one hand Bodkin proffered the pictures to the foreign market, with the other he formed a list of private British collectors. Having obtained what he considered the highest possible bids from across the

nged on his nostrils, and a voice said: "Well, Mr.

were not enough-had been Armenian! Subduing a natura

e got a fe

t-Impres

rather l

this?" said Soames, po

and short pointed beard. "Rather fine, I

e "Not particularly"-he would

" he

you wan

t I

picture. Post-Impressionists-they're awful dead, but they're amusin'.

O you c

lders. "Life's awful like a lot of

ust make a generalisation, he needn't sugges

Half the world's starvin'. I feed a small lot of babies out in my mother'

d back towards his Goya. He did

y cheque for?" pursu

"but I don't want you to take it if y

onsieur Profond; "I'll be

s watched the process uneasily. How on earth had the fellow known tha

ures," he said. "So are the French, so

tand you," said

nin' up or down-just the fashion. Awful funny." And, smiling, he drifted ou

lled a "small doubt" whether Annette was not too handsome to be walking with any one so "cosmopolitan." Even at that distance he could see the blue fumes from Profond's cigar wreathe out in the quiet sunlight; and his grey buckskin shoes, and his grey hat-the fellow was a dandy! And he could see the quick turn of his wife's head, so very straight on her desirable neck and shoulders. That turn of her ne

ames. You invited him

l young man of the Ga

ive only four miles from Pang

Why didn't he grow the rest of those idiotic little moustaches, which made him look like a music-hall buffoon? What on earth were young men about, deliberately low

see you!

head from side to side, became transfi

tions, that he had addressed

oya. It's a copy. I had it painted be

t I knew the face,

his interest almo

a," he said. "Shall we

ore about pictures than their market values. He was, as it were, the missing link between the artist and the commercial public. Art for art's sake and all that, of course, was cant. But aesthetics and good taste were necessary. The appreciation of enough persons of good taste was what gave a work of art its permanent market value, or in other words made it "a work of art." There was no real cleavage. And he was

, Mr. Mont, i

used to dream of the Stock Exchange, snug and warm and just noisy enough. But the Peace knocked th

ou got

so he's bound to keep me alive now. Though, of course, there's the question whether h

e and defen

m he may have to work yet. He's got

al Goya," said

in the most gorgeous lace. HE made no compromise with the public taste. That old boy was 'some' explosive; he must

Velasquez,"

ankrupt nations sell their Velasquezes and Titians and other swells to the profiteers by force, and then pass a law that a

down to tea?"

n his skull. 'He's not dense,' thought

ss, the old cut glasses, the thin slices of lemon in pale amber tea; justice to Annette in her black lacey dress; there was something of the fair Spaniard in her beauty, though it lacked the spirituality of that rare type; to Winifred's grey-haired, corseted solidity; to Soames, of a certain grey and flat-cheeked distinction; to the vivacious Michael

elf so fearfully fit; he's never had a day's illness in his life. He went right through the war without a finger-ache. You really can't imagine how fit he is!" Indeed, he was so "fit" that he couldn't see when she was flirting, which was such a comfort in a way. All the same she was quite fond of him, so far as one could be of a sports-machine, and of the two little Cardigans made after his pattern. Her eyes just then were comparing him maliciously wit

," at the last hole this morning; and how he had pulled down to Caversham since lunch, and try

of keepin' fit?" s

Michael Mont, "what

, enchanted, "what d

up his hand to wipe them away. During the War, of course, he had kept fit to kill Germans; now that

Profond unexpectedly, "there's

oon, would have passed unanswered, but

ery of the war. We all thought we were pro

said Monsieur P

erful, Prosper!"

ardigan; "you've got the hump. We'll so

e ball ab

n that deep instinct of preparation for

es-" he heard J

oing to give him trouble-pain-give him trouble? He did not like the look of things! A blackbird broke in on his reverie with an evening song-a great big fellow up in that acacia-tree. Soames had taken quite an interest in his birds of late years; he and Fleur would walk round and watch them; her eyes were sharp as needles, and she knew every nest. He saw her dog, a retriever, lying on the drive in a patch of sunlight, and called to him, "Hallo, old fellow-waiting for her too!" The dog came slowly w

lking up, sir, by

it would be an hour at least before her figure showed there. Walking up! And that fellow's grin! The boy-! He turned abruptly from the window. He couldn't spy on her. If she wanted to keep things from him-she must; he could not spy on her. His heart felt empty; and bitterness mounted from it into his very mouth. The staccato shouts of Jack Cardiga

r just beginning to tone down. 'There's no real li