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354 alive—so unchanged! The same quick warm blood was in her cheeks. It seemed only yesterday that we had kissed among the bracken stems

"Eh?" I said.

"I say he's good stuff," said my uncle. "You can say what you like against the aristocracy, George; Lord Carnaby's rattling good stuff. There's a sort of Savoir Faire, something—it's an old-fashioned phrase, George, but a good one—there's a Bong-Tong. It's like the Oxford turf, George, you can't grow it in a year. I wonder how they do it? It's living always on a Scale, George. It's being there from the beginning."

"She might," I said to myself, "be a picture by Romney come alive!"

"They tell all these stories about him," said my uncle, "but what do they all amount to?"

"Gods!" I said to myself; "but why have I forgotten for so long? Those queer little brows of hers—the touch of mischief in her eyes—the way she breaks into a smile!"

"I don't blame him," said my uncle. "Mostly it's imagination. That and leisure, George. When I was a young man I was kept pretty busy. So were you. Even then!"

What puzzled me more particularly was the queer trick of my memory that had never recalled any thing vital of Beatrice whatever when I met Garvell again, that had, indeed, recalled nothing except a boyish antagonism and our fight. Now when my senses were full of her, it seemed incredible that I could ever have forgotten.

"Oh Crikey!" said my aunt, reading a letter behind her coffee-machine. "Here's a young woman, George!"