I must put her back again.

No one knows but Cheiron and me--and now--you--that she is in existence, and no one else must ever know." He did not speak; he watched her while she wrapped the head in its folds of silk.
"Aphrodite never had so true a priestess, nor one so pure," he thought, and a strange feeling of sadness came over him, and he thanked her rather abruptly for showing him her treasure, and they went silently back through Sir Timothy's rooms, and down the stair; and in the Italian parlor he said good-by at once, and left.
The wind had got up and blew freshly in his face.

There would be a gale before morning.

It suited his mood.

He struck across the park, but instead of making for the haw-haw, he turned into Cheiron's little gate.
He wanted understanding company, he wanted to talk cynical philosophy, and he wanted the stimulus of his old master's biting wit.
But when he got there, he found Cheiron very taciturn--contributing little more than a growl now and then, while he smoked his long pipe and played with his beard.