one hand held out, fingers upwards, awaiting the return of his little osier fruit-bag.  Feeling. presently that it had been restored to him, he would turn and walk out of the shop.  Behind his back, on the face of the department, the same protecting smile always rose.  Long habit had perfected it.  All now felt that, though so very different from themselves, this aged customer was dependent on them.  By not one single farthing or one pale slip of cheese would they have defrauded him for all the treasures of the moon, and any new salesman who laughed at that old client was promptly told to “shut his head.”

Mr. Stone’s frail form, bent somewhat to one side by the increased gravamen of the osier bag, was now seen moving homewards.  He arrived perhaps ten minutes before the three o’clock alarum, and soon passing through preliminary chaos, the articulate, thin fluting of his voice streamed forth again, broken by the squeaking and spluttering of his quill.

But towards four o’clock signs of cerebral excitement became visible; his lips would cease to utter sounds, his pen to squeak.  His face, with a flushed forehead, would appear at the open window.  As soon as the little model came in sight—­her eyes fixed, not on his window, but on Hilary’s—­he turned his back, evidently waiting for her to enter by the door.  His first words were uttered in a tranquil voice:  “I have several pages.  I have placed your chair.  Are you ready?  Follow!”

Except for that strange tranquillity of voice and the disappearance of the flush on his brow, there was no sign of the rejuvenescence that she brought, of such refreshment as steals on the traveller who sits down beneath a lime-tree toward the end of along day’s journey; no sign of the mysterious comfort distilled into his veins by the sight of her moody young face, her young, soft limbs.  So from some stimulant men very near their end will draw energy, watching, as it were, a shape beckoning them forward, till suddenly it disappears in darkness.

In the quarter of an hour sacred to their tea and conversation he never noticed that she was always listening for sounds beyond; it was enough that in her presence he felt singleness of purpose strong within him.

When she had gone, moving languidly, moodily away, her eyes darting about for signs of Hilary, Mr. Stone would sit down rather suddenly and fall asleep, to dream, perhaps, of Youth—­Youth with its scent of sap, its close beckonings; Youth with its hopes and fears; Youth that hovers round us so long after it is dead!  His spirit would smile behind its covering—­that thin china of his face; and, as dogs hunting in their sleep work their feet, so he worked the fingers resting on his woollen knees.

The seven o’clock alarum woke him to the preparation of the evening meal.  This eaten, he began once more to pace up and down, to pour words out into the silence, and to drive his squeaking quill.