twist his hazel rod.  Well she knew that Larry loved her; he was not the first in whom she had divined it, but he was the first whose heart, crying to her, voicelessly, had wakened the answering chime in hers; the first, she said to herself, and the last.  She wondered, sometimes, if he knew; it seemed incredible that he could be with her, watching her, studying her least look, and not know.  Yet, she loved him for not knowing, for his boyishness, his babyishness, his simplicity.  She wondered if she were a fairy-woman, who by her arts had beguiled a mortal.  She had met an extraordinary woman once, in London, where anyone, however extraordinary, is possible, and this being, so she told Larry, had gazed at her, raptly, had then assured her that she saw her aura (blue shot with gold) and had told her that she had a very aged soul..

“I felt as if I were an old boot!” said Christian.

“Old idiot herself!” Larry said hotly; “what else did she pretend to know about you?”

“She said she had met me before, in a previous incarnation.  She couldn’t believe that I didn’t remember her.  But I couldn’t.”

“I’m glad you couldn’t,” said Larry, still angry.  “I won’t have you remembering lives that I wasn’t in!  Anyhow, I don’t believe they were half as good as this one.  I call this a thundering good life. I don’t want to have been Julius Caesar or Queen Anne.”

“Oh, I daresay you weren’t,” said Christian, consolingly; “you don’t remind me of either of them.  What would be more to the point would be to know what you were going to be.  In this life, I mean.”

“Oh, a painter first,” said Larry, responding with alacrity, as do most people, to the stimulus of discussing himself; “but not exclusively.  I shouldn’t mind having the hounds for a bit, and I should like to travel—­the gorgeous East, you know—­that sort of thing.  And I must say,” he hesitated, “I’m rather keen to have a shot at politics.”

He put down his palette and brushes and began to roll a cigarette, while he walked backwards away from his easel, staring alternately at his canvas and his model.

“Have you forgotten that I’m the prospective candidate for this constituency?  The Home Rule ticket, you know!” He looked at his audience with a touch of defiance; “I don’t know what you may think—­my notion is—­”

The prospective candidate launched forth into a statement of his notions; what, precisely, they were, is a matter that may here be omitted.  The kaleidoscope of Irish politics has made many new patterns since Larry outlined his views for Christian, and the pattern of 1907 interests us no more.  The affinity that exists between politics and eggs is not limited to the function of the latter in emphasising criticism of the former; it also extends to individual characteristics.  The morning newspaper and the morning egg should be equally recent.  Larry’s political notions, when he stated them, had at least the merit of freshness, and it shall be left to them.