"Are you going to work?" Gilbert said to Henry, when the others had gone.

"I think so," Henry replied. "I haven't written a word for days. You?"

"I'll go and have a squint at the Pall Mall ... just to make sure that last night wasn't a dream. I'll come back to lunch. It 'ud be rather jolly to go on from Dublin and see your father, Quinny?"

"Yes ... that's a notion. I'll write and tell him we're coming. Bring back the afternoon papers when you come, Gilbert, I'd like to see what they say about the play!"

"Righto!" said Gilbert.

Henry sat on in the breakfast room, after Gilbert had gone, reading the criticisms of "The Magic Casement," and then, when he had finished, he went up to his room and began to work on "Turbulence." He wrote steadily for an hour, and then read over what he had done.

"This is better," he murmured to himself, pleased with what he had written, and he prepared to go on, but before he could start again, there was a knock on the door, and Magnolia came in.

"You're wanted on the telephone, sir!" she said.

"Who is it?"

"I don't know, sir. They didn't say!"

He went downstairs and took up the receiver. "Hilloa!" he said.

"Is that you, Paddy?" was the response.

"Cecily!"

"Yes. I've just had your letter. Are you very cross, Paddy?"

He felt perturbed, but he tried to make his voice sound as if he were indifferent to her.

"No," he replied, "I'm not cross at all...."

"Oh, yes, you are, Paddy. You're very cross, and you're going to teach me a lesson, aren't you?"

He could hear her light laugh as she spoke.

"I can't make you believe that I'm not cross at all," he said.

"No, you can't. Paddy!" Her voice had a coaxing note as she said his name.

"Yes."

"Come to lunch with me. Jimphy's gone off for the day somewhere...."

"I'm sorry!..."

"Do come, Paddy. I want you to come. I do, really!"

He paused for a second or two before he replied. After all why should he not go?...

"I'm sorry," he said, "but I really can't lunch with you. I'm going to Ireland!..."

"Going where?"

"Ireland. To-night! I'm going with Gilbert!"

"But you can't go this minute. Paddy, you are cross, and you're spiteful, too. If you aren't cross, you'll come and lunch with me. You ought to come and say 'good-bye' to me before you go to Ireland...."

"I've got a lot to do ... packing and things!"

"You can do that afterwards!" Her voice became more insistent. "Paddy, I want you to come. You must come!..."

He hesitated, and she said, "Do, Paddy!" very appealingly.

It would be weak, he told himself, to yield to her now ... she would think she had only to be a little gracious and he would be at her feet immediately; and then he thought it would be weak not to yield to her. "It'll look as if I were afraid to meet her ... running away like this. Or that I'm sulking ... just petulant!"

"All right," he said to her, "I'll come!"

"Come now!"

He nodded his head, forgetting that she could not see him, and she called to him again, "You'll come now, won't you?"

"Yes," he replied. "I'll come at once!"

He put up the receiver and reached for his hat. "I wonder what she wants," he thought, "perhaps she really does love me and my letter's frightened her!" His spirits rose at the thought and he went jauntily to the door and opened it, and as he did so, Ninian, pale and miserable, panted up the steps.

"My God, Quinny!" he exclaimed, almost sobbing, "the Gigantic's gone down!"

"The what?"

"The Gigantic's gone down! It's in the paper. Look, look!" He was unbalanced by grief as he thrust the Westminster Gazette and the Globe into Henry's hands.

"But, damn it, she can't have gone down," Henry said, "she's a Belfast boat ... she can't have gone down!"

"She has, I tell you, and Tom Arthurs ... oh, my God, Quinny, he's gone down too! The decentest chap on earth and ... and he's been drowned!"

Henry led him into the house. "I went out to get the evening papers to see about Gilbert's play," he went on, "and that's what I saw. I saw her at Southampton going off as proud as a queen ... and now she's at the bottom of the Atlantic. And Tom waved his hand to me. He was going to show me over her properly when he came back. Isn't it horrible, Quinny? What's the sense of it ... what the hell's the sense of it?"

"She can't have gone down ..." Henry said, as if that would comfort Ninian.

"She has, I tell you...."

Henry went to the sideboard and took out the whisky.

"Here, Ninian," he said, pouring out some of it, "drink that. You're upset!..."

"No, I don't want any whisky. God damn it, what's the sense of a thing like this! A man like Tom Arthurs!..."

There was a noise like the sound of a taxi-cab drawing up in front of the house, and presently the bell rang, and then, after a moment or two, the door opened, and Mrs. Graham came hurrying into the room.

"Ninian! Where's Ninian?" she said wildly to Henry.

"He's here, Mrs. Graham!"

She went to him and clutched him tightly to her. "Oh, my dear, my dear," she said.

"What is it, mother?" he asked, calming himself and looking at her.

"I telephoned to your office, but you weren't there, so I came here to find you. I couldn't rest content till I'd seen you!"

"What is it, mother?"

"That ship, Ninian. If you'd been on it ... you wanted to go, and I said why didn't you ... oh, my dear, if you'd been on it, and I'd lost you!"

He put his arms about her and drew her on to his shoulder. "I'm all right, mother!" he said.

Henry left the room hurriedly. He went to the kitchen and called to Mrs. Clutters. "I won't be in to lunch," he said. "Don't let any one disturb Mrs. Graham and Mr. Graham for a while. They ... they've had bad news!"

Then he went out of the house. The taxi-cab in which Mrs. Graham had come was still standing outside the door.

"I ain't 'ad me fare yet," said the driver.

"All right!" said Henry. "I'll pay it."

He gave Cecily's address to the man, and then he got into the cab.