He had learned with a deep delight that it was not going to put her off to find something out of place in the room, and he even began to rummage out things she would never have found for herself that he wanted her to see, until gradually she could begin to piece together his life as she had once dreamed that he would reveal it to her if he returned.

Self-consciousness, prudence, his scrupulous care never to startle her, or some indefinable between-worlds etiquette which governed his actions made it impossible for him to come close to her, or to move things about when she was in the room. But often when she arrived at the door in the morning some new treasure had been exposed for her investigation.

The first of these exhibits had been involuntary. Regretting his lost Junonia, which must be in the useless parcel of his effects which Dalton would have dispatched from Peshawur to his family, he brought out from a lower shelf the tidy wooden boxes of his very select collection of butterflies and beetles. Each specimen was neatly pinned down with its label, which by his own key led to a little black notebook where the circumstances of its capture were recorded. It was a boyish scheme begun long ago for the entertainment of his suppositious old age. Somewhat ruefully he beheld them again, for his old age was a bit of a joke now.

Here was his Parnassius, an absolutely perfect specimen, taken in a flower-studded clearing on Mt. Huttu; and his first big yellow Papilio, on the way down to Narkanda; and the thrilling black Heliconia from Trinidad (and a long, hot chase that was, through vicious undergrowth, but worth it); and the ubiquitous Danaida chrysippus, this one from Khartum, beyond the waterworks.

He was still hovering over them lovingly when Sabrina came in, much earlier than usual, carrying pink ramblers with the dew still glinting on their petals, and a somewhat draggled kitten who had run through tall wet grass.

She stopped in the middle of the room, gazing at the unfamiliar boxes on the desk.

“Oh!” she gasped, and dumped down the roses and came to bend above the butterflies. “Oh, how lovely! Oh, what are they!”

“The story of my life,” he told her, smiling, “in butterflies’ wings.”

“I never knew they were here! Look, Muffin – he’s left them out for us to see! And they’ve all got names, Muffin, don’t you wish they could talk?”

“They can,” he said, savoring her pleasure. “I’ll find my key for you.”

“There was a butterfly book somewhere—I’ve seen it on the shelf. Perhaps if we read it, we could learn something about them.”

She carried the kitten to the shelves behind the chesterfield, and finally ran to earth the battered Kirby which had been at school with him, and returned with it in triumph to the desk.