“So long as we don’t eat them!” Julia protested.

“I have tasted insects in South America which were delicious,” Selingman assured them.  “There—­leave your parasol over the salad, and, Maraton, move the ice-pail a little more into the shade.  Now, while they set the luncheon, we will walk in that little flower garden, and I will tell you, if you like, a story of mine I once wrote, the story of two roses.  I published it, alas!  It is so hard to save even our most beautiful thoughts from the vulgarity of print, in these days where everything—­love and wine, and even the roses themselves—­cost money.  Bah!”

“The story, please,” Julia begged.

He walked in the middle and took an arm of each of his companions.

“So you would hear my little story?” he exclaimed.  “Then listen.”

They obeyed.  Presently he forgot himself.  His eyes were half-closed, his thoughts seemed to have wandered into the strangest places.  As his allegory proceeded, he seemed to drift away from all knowledge of his immediate surroundings.  He chose his words always with the most exquisite and precise care.  They listened, entranced.  Then suddenly he stopped short in the path.

“For half an hour have I been giving of myself,” he declared.  “Almost I faint.  Come.”

He tightened his grasp upon their arms and started walking with short, abrupt footsteps—­and great haste for the luncheon table.

“Fool that I am!” he muttered.  “It is one o’clock, and I lunch always at half-past twelve.  I must eat quickly.  See, the waiter looks at us sorrowfully.  What of the omelette, I wonder?  Come, Miss Julia, at my right hand there.  Ah! was I not right?  The roses are creeping already—­creeping into their proper place.  Sit back in your chair and eat slowly and drink the yellow wine, and listen to the humming of those bees.  So soon you will become normal, a woman, just what you should be.  Heavens!  It is well that I came to see Maraton.  When I saw you this morning in that room, I said to myself—­’There is a human creature who half lives.  What a sin to half live!’ . . .  Taste that salad, Maraton.  Taste it, man, and admit that it is well that I came.”

They were alone in the garden—­the inn was a little way off the main road and they had discovered it entirely by accident.  Both Julia and Maraton yielded gracefully enough to the influence of their companion’s personality.

“Whether it is well for us or not,” Maraton remarked, as he watched the wine flow into his glass, “to yield up one’s will like this, to become even as a docile child, I do not know, but it is very pleasant.  It is an hour of detachment.”