* * * * *

A quarter of an hour later he appeared again at the bottom of the lawn, dressed as before, his wet hair already drying into its crisp short curls again.  There he paused a moment, looking back at the stream with the smile with which men look on the face of a friend, then turned towards the house.  Simultaneously his servant came to the door leading on to the terrace, followed by a man who appeared to be some half-way through the fourth decade of his years.  Frank and he saw each other across the bushes and garden-beds, and each quickening his step, they met suddenly face to face round an angle of the garden walk, in the fragrance of syringa.

“My dear Darcy,” cried Frank, “I am charmed to see you.”

But the other stared at him in amazement.

“Frank!” he exclaimed.

“Yes, that is my name,” he said laughing, “what is the matter?”

Darcy took his hand.

“What have you done to yourself?” he asked.  “You are a boy again.”

“Ah, I have a lot to tell you,” said Frank.  “Lots that you will hardly believe, but I shall convince you——­”

He broke off suddenly, and held up his hand.

“Hush, there is my nightingale,” he said.

The smile of recognition and welcome with which he had greeted his friend faded from his face, and a look of rapt wonder took its place, as of a lover listening to the voice of his beloved.  His mouth parted slightly, showing the white line of teeth, and his eyes looked out and out till they seemed to Darcy to be focused on things beyond the vision of man.  Then something perhaps startled the bird, for the song ceased.

“Yes, lots to tell you,” he said.  “Really I am delighted to see you.  But you look rather white and pulled down; no wonder after that fever.  And there is to be no nonsense about this visit.  It is June now, you stop here till you are fit to begin work again.  Two months at least.”

“Ah, I can’t trespass quite to that extent.”

Frank took his arm and walked him down the grass.

“Trespass?  Who talks of trespass?  I shall tell you quite openly when I am tired of you, but you know when we had the studio together, we used not to bore each other.  However, it is ill talking of going away on the moment of your arrival.  Just a stroll to the river, and then it will be dinner-time.”

Darcy took out his cigarette case, and offered it to the other.

Frank laughed.

“No, not for me.  Dear me, I suppose I used to smoke once.  How very odd!”

“Given it up?”

“I don’t know.  I suppose I must have.  Anyhow I don’t do it now.  I would as soon think of eating meat.”

“Another victim on the smoking altar of vegetarianism?”

“Victim?” asked Frank.  “Do I strike you as such?”

He paused on the margin of the stream and whistled softly.  Next moment a moor-hen made its splashing flight across the river, and ran up the bank.  Frank took it very gently in his hands and stroked its head, as the creature lay against his shirt.