had wide interests, and, indeed could still read The Times, but he was liable at any moment to put it down if he heard ablackbird sing. Upright conduct, property — somehow, they were tiring; the blackbirds and the sunsets never tired him, onlygave him an uneasy feeling that he could not get enough of them. Staring into the stilly radiance of the early evening andat the little gold and white flowers on the lawn, a thought came to him: This weather was like the music of ‘Orfeo,’ whichhe had recently heard at Covent Garden. A beautiful opera, not like Meyerbeer, nor even quite Mozart, but, in its way,perhaps even more lovely; something classical and of the Golden Age about it, chaste and mellow, and the Ravogli ‘almostworthy of the old days’— highest praise he could bestow. The yearning of Orpheus for the beauty he was losing, for his lovegoing down to Hades, as in life love and beauty did go — the yearning which sang and throbbed through the golden music,stirred also in the lingering beauty of the world that evening. And with the tip of his cork-soled, elastic-sided boot heinvoluntarily stirred the ribs of the dog Balthasar, causing the animal to wake and attack his fleas; for though he wassupposed to have none, nothing could persuade him of the fact. When he had finished he rubbed the place he had beenscratching against his master’s calf, and settled down again with his chin over the instep of the disturbing boot. And intoold Jolyon’s mind came a sudden recollection — a face he had seen at that opera three weeks ago — Irene, the wife of hisprecious nephew Soames, that man of property! Though he had not met her since the day of the ‘At Home’ in his old house atStanhope Gate, which celebrated his granddaughter June’s ill-starred engagement to young Bosinney, he had remembered her atonce, for he had always admired her — a very pretty creature. After the death of young Bosinney, whose mistress she had soreprehensibly become, he had heard that she had left Soames at once. Goodness only knew what she had been doing since. That