THE GOLDEN ACE AGAIN.* MISS BROSTER has again issued from
her workshop to present the public with a novel. She has worked simply and quietly with a few carefully-chosen historical materials which have been well seasoned in the sweet air of Romanticism. Intruding
and perplexing personality has been weathered away, so that, the persons of the novel once fitted into place, no internal action may warp them from their setting in the design. The result is a tale of adventure which shall stimulate without disturbing the reader. It will keep the tired City man by the fireside and the sleepy schoolgirl sitting up in bed to damage her eyes by indulging her romantic soul by candlelight:
The motif of the story is the friendship of two Breton noble- men, Laurent and Aymar, the latter a Royalist leader against the Imperial army of Napoleon. By taking an unlucky risk, half for strategic purposes and half to rescue his betrothed from a death which he afterwards learns did not threaten her, he is accused by his men and shot as a traitor. Then, captured by the Imperialists, he is nursed back to life by Laurent, also a prisoner, who persists in his faith in Aymar's nobility. There are indignities, tears, blood, ferocious colonels, family
honour, and stilted conversation which carries such phrases as" how did this unfortunate divine come by his burnt arm ? " What a friendship that was ! Such a friendship has never before existed between two men. Not even Patroclus and Achilles could have behaved like this :—
" So Laurent dragged himself nearer and rested his back against the side of the chair. Aymar amused himself by gently pulling
his hair. Ticns,' said Laurent, with a little yawn, 'that is what Maman used to do to send me to steep when I was small. It gener- ally did ; if not, she would tell me a fairy story. Tell me one 1 His head dropped on to Aymar's knee. The hand left his hair, and there was silence."
Then there is Aymar's beloved. Laurent, meeting her for the first time," saw that she had a face that a man might die for- a man like Aymar at all events . . ." Alit you tired City man reading of this friendship, this love ; there arc other human artifices in the world than rubber shares and Nigeria% • The Wounded Name. By P. K. Broater. London: Murray. CM 044
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