ARABIAN NIGHTS FOR TURGIS 331

did not want company for company's sake. What he
really wanted was Love, Romance, a Wonderful Girl of
His Own. And these had lately all been assuming the
same shape in his mind, that of Miss Lena Golspie. He
had never spoken to her, had never seen her except once,
at a distance, since that day she appeared at the office,
but he had thought a great deal about her. To say that
he had fallen in love with her at sight would be to
exaggerate. If an attractive girl—and she need not have
been anything like so pretty as Miss Golspie—had
turned up and had been kind to him, no doubt he would
soon have forgotten all about Lena. But no such girl
turned up; indeed no girl of any kind appeared. If Lena
Golspie was not the prettiest girl he had ever seen (and
he could not remember a prettier, not even if he in-
cluded the beautiful shadow people. Lulu Castellar and
the other film stars), she was certainly the prettiest girl
he had ever spoken to, and the fact that she had actually
made her appearance at the office door in Angel Pave-
ment somehow brought her definitely into his own
world. That she was not really a creature of that world
only made her more fascinating, mysterious, romantic,
like the beautiful heroine of a love story of the films.
She was a lovely bird of passage. He imagined her
against a background of strange places and fantastic
luxuries. It was as if Lulu Castellar had stepped out of
the screen, taken on colour and solid shape, and had
actually spoken to him, smiled at him. And yet, there
it was, her father worked in the very same business, in
the very same office, with him. No wonder he could not
get the girl out of his head, which for a long time now
had been haunted by a vague but infinitely desirable
feminine shape. It was vague no longer; it had definite