o in dancers, swaying and looking, no more governed by precept or reason, but by some other lesson which the flesh might at any moment remember, at the touch of peacock feathers. Miss Hare had to glance at her companion to see whether he could be aware that her limbs were, in fact, so long and lovely, and her conical white breasts not so cold as they had been taught to behave unless offered the excuse of music. But the Jew had set himself to observe the strange situation in which his hand had become involved. And at the same time he was saying, "I agree that intellect can be a serious handicap. There are moments when I like to imagine I have overcome it." Then, as the wrinkles gathered at the corners of his mouth: "It is most salutary that you and the drill at which I spend my working life should disillusion me from time to time." He accused with a kindliness, even sweetness, which made her almost throw away the hand. Her evanescent beauty was lit with the little mirrors of fury, before it was destroyed. Which it was, of course. Her condition could not have been less obvious than the sad rags of old cobwebs hanging from a cornice. "Oh," she cried, her mouth full of tears and pebbles, "I am not interested in you! Not what you are, think, feel. I am only concerned for your safety. I am responsible for you!" she gasped. In her anxiety, her tormented skin began to chafe the hand. Whether she had suspected a moment before, probably for the first and only time, what it was to be a woman, her passion was more serious, touching, urgent now that she had been reduced to the status of a troubled human being. Although they continued to sit apart on the terribly formal furniture, it was this latest metamorphosis which brought the two closest together. Himmelfarb stirred inside the aggressive, and in no way personal boiler-suit. After clearing his throat, he asked, "Is there any concrete evidence of danger?" If he played for time, and ignored the last dictates of repulsion which might advise him to withdraw his hand, he could perhaps persuade her into telling him the most secret hiding places. "Concrete? You should know that real danger never begins by being concrete!" Yes, indeed. He could not deny that. When she had recovered from the spasm of exasperation which caused her to jerk, almost to twist the unbelievably passive hand, she began a long, dry, but important, because undoubtedly rehearsed, passage of recitative: "I was going to make a proposal. No. What am I saying? Offer a proposition? It has occurred to me on and off, only there were always too many obstacles. And even now it could sound silly. I mean, it might appear distasteful. But it is what Peg-the old servant-would have called practical. (If only Peg were here, it would be so much easier for all of us.) To cut matters short-because that is necessary since certain things have happened-I want to suggest that you should come here, well, to live." Purposely, she did not look at him, because she would not have cared to witness surprise. "I would hide you," she continued, with blunt tongue. "There are so many rooms, there would be no necessity to stay very long in any one. Which would add to the chances of your safety." She could feel, through his stillness, that he did accept her motives, while remaining critical of her plan. "It would be wrong of you to hide me," he answered, but gently. "Because I can honestly say I have nothing to hide." "They will not ask themselves that," she said. "Men usually decide to destroy for very feeble reasons. Oh, I know from experience! It can be the weather, or boredom after lunch. They will torture almost to death someone who has seen into them. Even their own dogs." "When the time comes for my destruction," he replied quite calmly and evenly, "it will not be decided by men." "That makes it more frightening!" she cried. And burst suddenly into tears. She was at her ugliest, wet and matted, but any disgust which Himmelfarb might have felt was swallowed up in the conviction that, despite the differences of geography and race, they were, and always had been, engaged on a similar mission. Approaching from opposite directions, it was the same darkness and the same marsh which threatened to engulf their movements, but however lumbering and impeded those movements might be, the precious parcel of secrets carried by each must only be given at the end into certain hands. Although the Jew blundered on towards the frontier through the mist of experience, he emerged at one point, and found himself on the hard _causeuse__ in the little sitting-room at Xanadu. There he roused himself, and touched his fellow traveller, and said, "I am going now. I would like to persuade you that the simple acts we have learnt to perform daily are the best protection against evil." "They are very consoling," she admitted. But sighed. The lovely, tarnished light of evening lay upon the floors. In that light, with each object most emphatically intact for the last moments of the day, Himmelfarb could have forgotten he had ever been forced to interrupt those simple daily acts which he now advocated as a shield. Miss Hare followed him across the hall. "At least I must warn you," she said, "when you go from here, that my former housekeeper, Mrs Jolley, suffers from certain delusions. I do not think she is an active agent. But is under the influence of a Mrs Flack, whom I have never met, only suspect. It could be that Mrs Flack also is innocent. But the most devilish ideas will enter the heads of some women as they sit together in a house at dusk and listen to their stomachs rumble. Well, Mrs Jolley is at present staying with Mrs Flack." "And where do these ladies live?" "Oh, in some street. That is unimportant. I think you mentioned, Mr…" (she was no longer ashamed of her inability to manage a name) "… that we were links in some chain. I am convinced myself that there are two chains. Matched against each other. If Mrs Jolley and Mrs Flack were the only two links in theirs, then, of course, we should have nothing to fear. _But__." She was leading him slowly through the house, which the crimson and gold of evening had dyed with a Renaissance splendour. The marble of a torso and crystal of a chandelier shivered for their own beauty. "Is this the way?" he asked. "I am taking you out through the back," she said. "It is shorter." On the kitchen table a knife lay, it, too, a sliver of light. "I would kill for you, you know," Miss Hare suddenly said. "If it would preserve for us what is right." "Then it would no longer be right." Himmelfarb smiled. He took the knife which she had picked up from the table, and dropped it back into its pool of light. "Its purpose is to cut bread," he said. "An unemotional, though noble one." So that she was quenched, and went munching silence on the last stage to the back door. On the step she stood giving him final directions. The rather dead, soapy face of the man who had come towards her up the hill had been touched into life, by last light, or the mysteries of human intercourse. "You always have to leave me about this time," she meditated, as she stood looking down on him from her step. "There is something secret that you do," she complained, "in your own house. But I am not jealous." "There is nothing secret," he replied. "It is the time of evening when I go to say my prayers." "Oh, _prayers__!" she mumbled. Then: "I have never said any. Except when I was not my own mistress. When I was very young." "But you have expressed them in other ways." She shook that off rather irritably, and might have been preparing something rude, if another thought had not risen to trouble the surface. "Oh, dear, what will save us?" she wondered. Before he could answer, she exclaimed, "Look!" And was shading her eyes from the dazzle of gold. "It was at this time of evening," her mouth gasped, and worked at words, "that I would sometimes feel afraid of the consequences. I would fall down in a fit while the wheels were still approaching. It was too much for anyone so weak. And lie sometimes for hours. I think I could not bear to look at it." "There is no reason why you should not look now." Him-melfarb made an effort. "It is an unusually fine sunset." "Yes," she said. And laughed somewhat privately. "And the grey furrows," she observed, "where the wheels have sunk in. And the little soft feathers of the wheels." Himmelfarb took his leave of the mistress of Xanadu. He was not in a position to dismiss her as a madwoman, as other people did, because of his involvement in the same madness. For now that the tops of the trees had caught fire, the bells of the ambulances were again ringing for him, those of the fire-engines clanging, and he shuddered to realize there could never be an end to the rescue of men from the rubble of their own ideas. So the bodies would continue to be carried out, and hidden under a blanket, while those who were persuaded they were still alive would insist on returning to the wreckage, to search for teeth, watches, and other recognized necessities. Most deceived, however, were the souls, who protested in grey voices that they had already been directed to enter the forms of plants, stones, animals, and in some cases, even human beings. So the souls were crying, and combing their smoked-out hair. They were already exhausted by the bells, prayers, orders, and curses of the many fires at which, in the course of their tormented lives, it had been their misfortune to assist. Only the Chariot itself rode straight and silent, both now and on the clouds of recollection. Himmelfarb plodded up the road which led from Xanadu to Sarsaparilla, comforted by physical weariness and the collaboration of his friend. He yawned once or twice. The white faces of nondescript flowers twitched and glimmered at the touch of darkness. Stones brooded. He, the most stubborn of all souls, might well be told off next to invest a stone. As he went up the hill, the sparks shot out from beneath his boots, from the surface of the road, so far distant that, with all the lovingkindness in the world, his back could not have bent for him to lift them up, so elusive that Hezekiah, David, and Akiba had failed to redeem the lost sparks. The Jew wandered, and stumbled over stones, and came at last to his frail house, and touched the Shema upon the doorpost, as he went in.