"
Ethel smiled a little sceptically. "You have loved often."
"No," he replied. "Loved, seriously loved, I have, only once."
XX
They were sitting in a little Italian restaurant where they had often,
in the old days, lingered late into the night over a glass of Lacrimae
Christi. But no pale ghost of the past rose from the wine. Only a
wriggling something, with serpent eyes, that sent cold shivers down her
spine and held her speechless and entranced.
When their order had been filled and the waiter had posted himself at a
respectful distance, Reginald began--at first leisurely, a man of the
world. But as he proceeded a strange exultation seemed to possess him
and from his eyes leaped the flame of the mystic.
"You must pardon me," he commenced, "if I monopolise the conversation,
but the revelations I have to make are of such a nature that I may well
claim your attention. I will start with my earliest childhood. You
remember the picture of me that was taken when I was five?"
She remembered, indeed.
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