"That was the silly way we began. Isn't it incredible?"

"He could be silly--that was one of the lovable things," Hugh mused.
"And he could say the most nakedly natural things. But he generally used
the mandarin dialect. He thought in it, I suppose."

"No," the stranger corrected him. "He thought in thoughts. Brilliant
people always do. The words just wait like a--a--"

"Layette," said Hugh. "What else did he say?"

"The next I remember we were leaning together, all but touching. And he
was telling me about the little green gate."

Hugh's hand shut. "He always called it that. Was he thinking of it even
then?"

"Oh yes!"

"He never was like a person of this world," said Hugh, under his breath.

"The loneliest creature I ever knew."

They fell silent, like two old friends whose sorrow is the same.

"He believed," Hugh went on, after a moment, "that when life became
intolerable you had a perfect right to take the shortest way out. And he
thought of it as a little green gate, swinging with its shadow in the
twilight so that a touch would let you into the sweetest, dimmest old
garden."