however. That discovery is mine, and dates from the disastrous day in question.
For a time life resumed the even tenor of its way.
Withal — since candour is the keynote of these pages — there were times when I was lonely. One’s power of conversation is like a bottle of choice perfumery. The glass stopper of disuse has a distressful way of sticking, when left too long in place, and one must resort to sweet oil and glycerine and hot water to make the contents available again. Day after day of self-communion was having something of this effect on me. I was in need of a companion with whom to talk, and, for lack of a better, I turned to Darius Doane. Galvin was out of the question. Hers was the only case I have ever known in which it did not take two to make a conversation. On the rare occasions when she talked at all, it would have required two wedges and a sledge-hammer to force the briefest of replies in edge-
