"Madam," he said, bowing simply, "I am Major Brown."
"Sit down," said the lady; but she did not turn her head.
She was a graceful, green-clad figure, with fiery red hair and a
flavour of Bedford Park. "You have come, I suppose," she said
mournfully, "to tax me about the hateful title-deeds."
"I have come, madam," he said, "to know what is the matter. To know
why my name is written across your garden. Not amicably either."
He spoke grimly, for the thing had hit him. It is impossible to
describe the effect produced on the mind by that quiet and sunny
garden scene, the frame for a stunning and brutal personality.
The evening air was still, and the grass was golden in the place
where the little flowers he studied cried to heaven for his
blood.
"You know I must not turn round," said the lady; "every afternoon
till the stroke of six I must keep my face turned to the street."
Some queer and unusual inspiration made the prosaic soldier
resolute to accept these outrageous riddles without surprise.
"It is almost six," he said; and even as he spoke the barbaric
copper clock upon the wall clanged the first stroke of the hour.
At the sixth the lady sprang up and turned on the Major one of
the queerest and yet most attractive faces he had ever seen in
his life; open, and yet tantalising, the face of an elf.
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