“Oh, I like that very much!” he murmured gently, when the man’s voice died away. “Certainly we will include that in what we send to London!” It somehow seemed quite natural to him now, in the fleeting loveliness of this blue light, that Jason should, without retracting his spleen, have accepted his offer. As he watched the man crouching there between himself and that unearthly atmosphere, his sombre figure became for him a monumental symbol charged with feelings beyond expression. At how many hearths, that winter afternoon, were human beings watching this strange blueness, flung against their casements like the dreamy breath of the earth itself, caught ere it dissolved into space! That aerial transparency might easily be something that never again in all the days of his life would appear exactly as it did now! Oh, how he longed to scoop it up in great handfuls and pour it forth over every wounded spirit in the world! How he longed to sprinkle it like holy water over that face upon the Waterloo steps! A strange melting happiness began to thrill through him⁠—and then, suddenly, “ Mr.