As Lady Maitland’s car drove away from Euston, Carstairs set himself to divide the luggage and find seats for the rest of the party. His wife was sent with Madame Pinto, Amy Loring with Barbara; he himself arranged to share a taxi with Deganway to the Foreign Office.

“What are you going to do, Gaymer?,” he asked.

“I’m going to have a drink,” was the answer.

“We can drop you in Buckingham Gate,” suggested Mrs. O’Rane.

Gaymer sat moodily on his suit-case, beating his cane against the side of his leg.

“Do I want to go there?,” he yawned. “Well, I suppose it’s as good a place as any... I’ll drop you first and take the car on.”

As they headed for Westminster, Mrs. O’Rane reviewed the house-party with a critical eye, while Gaymer stared out of window and her husband assembled and sorted such impressions as had come to him from words which were intended to cover feelings and from voices which broke through the disguise of words. The men and women who talked to him still made play with gestures and expressions which he could not see; they forgot to keep their voices mechanical; and, even without Amy’s warning that they must be prepared for storms, he could have deduced a state of tension from half-heard changes of tone, from hesitations and accelerations, from shrill notes of self-betrayal and unctuous rolls of insincerity.

“We must make Bobbie Pentyre take a little more trouble before we go to Croxton again,” cried Mrs. O’Rane. “His parties are such a hideous jumble. That appalling Pinto woman! I won thirty-five pounds from her at poker, but I’d pay twice that not to meet her again. And fancy asking Babs and Eric Lane at the same time!”

“I think that’s all over, Sonia,” said her husband.

A murmur of lowered voices had reached him the first night at dinner; and, though he could not hear the words, he guessed from Barbara’s tone that she was testing her strength and that Eric was holding himself detached. It was safe to assume that there had been a scene of some kind, for on later days, when they spoke at all, Eric’s voice was apprehensively frigid and Barbara’s unnaturally composed. No one else seemed to have noticed anything, and any gossip centred round Eric and Ivy. O’Rane suspected antagonism here between Gaymer and Eric; however they spoke when they were alone, there was a frozen politeness of voice when any one else was present. Gaymer, presumably was in love, for his tone wakened to warmth when he talked to Ivy; and, presumably, his suit was not prospering, for, when they returned from the river, he had hardly spoken at all.

“The Maitland child was working hard,” said Mrs. O’Rane.

“She’s being hunted into it by the family,” said Gaymer, breaking silence for the first time. “She doesn’t get on with her own people—small blame to her!—, and Connie Maitland doesn’t want to be stuck with her for all time; so, when a man with a certain amount of money comes along—”

“She’ll get him easily enough,” interrupted Mrs. O’Rane. “No man of thirty-five is proof against innocence and bobbed hair. They think they’re renewing their youth; and, if they’ve made fools of themselves already, they imagine a girl of eighteen will be nice and tractable... And eighteen adores the wisdom of thirty-five and loves to think that purity and youth have won the day against experience. I had a succÈs fou when I was eighteen; nine old men proposed to me in one week, and seven of them said that I was like a flower with the dew still on me. The only one I cared for had a wife already; he didn’t call me a flower, but he knew enough of women to be dangerous. I’m sure Eric Lane calls the Maitland child a flower; and, when she grows up, she’ll be so bored that she’ll run away with the first man who knows that women aren’t flowers....”

O’Rane retired within himself and continued his analysis. Gaymer was certainly in love; too prudent to betray himself by attacking a rival, he soothed his own troubled spirit by pretending that Ivy Maitland, if not in love with him, was at least not in love with any one else. Sonia—to judge by her voice, though no one saw her stealthily examining her reflection in the strip of glass opposite her—was just old enough to be jealous of a girl ten years younger, who was beginning to attract men by her looks and youth rather than by artifice or qualities of mind. And, if the Maitlands were indeed forcing Ivy into marriage, no compulsion was needed on the other side; though Eric had talked to every one, his voice too became animated only when he was with Ivy....

“Well, here we are,” said Mrs. O’Rane, as the car came to a standstill. “D’you like to take it on or will you come in for your drink, Johnny?”

Gaymer sat for some moments in silence, as though unable to make up his mind to do anything.

“Oh, never refuse a good offer,” he answered at length, as he dragged himself out of the car.

“Help yourself, then. I’m lunching out and I must change my dress.”

In the moment that she took to hurry into the house and glance at her letters, Gaymer watched her with a new, impersonal interest. His eyes followed her as she ran upstairs humming to herself. Less than three years before, it was commonly believed that she had quarrelled with her husband and run away with another man; tiring of him, apparently, she had come back. It was curious that women could dart to and fro like this; in his own experience he had always been the first to tire and he had never gone back to a woman after passion, drearily cooling, had at last mercifully died; if his passion for Ivy had cooled, he could not now return to her, but she had broken away while she still amused him, while his power over her was strongest, while he had only to rouse her jealousy in order to make her do whatever he wanted....

A faint fragrance of violets lingered in the hall, provocative as the broken music of Sonia’s voice when she sang to herself overhead. Though he had always found her too metallically sure of herself to be attractive, Gaymer felt resentfully that he was being denied something that other men had and that ought to be his. O’Rane was waiting for him in the library, but he was bored with the company of men. Softness of voice and touch, lightness of step, sweetness of body, yielding gentleness... A man was incomplete without woman....

He walked into the library and mixed himself a drink. Women were too near animals to be civilized, but they were pleasantly domesticated. Pink tulips on every table, great branches of lilac bursting from both fire-places... And his senses had brought with him that faint fragrance of violets. Gaymer wondered what O’Rane had done when Sonia ran away and left him with memories and a ravening hunger. The world was full of women, but their love was impermanent; you could not buy or steal a substitute if it was your wife who had left you... Or Ivy, who was as much your own as a wife....

“A drink for you, O’Rane?,” asked Gaymer.

“No, thanks. I can smell things, but my taste is not what it once was... I don’t want to seem inhospitable, Gaymer, but you’re drinking much more than’s good for you. It’s a sound rule only to drink when you’re at the top of your form; otherwise it’s a waste of good liquor and ruination of a good constitution.”

Gaymer drained his tumbler and refilled it. The decanter rattled, as he put it down on the tray, and he transferred it to the table-cloth so that he could help himself again, if he desired, without attracting his host’s over-acute attention.

“I can drop it any time I like,” he boasted.

“Then drop it now,” O’Rane suggested. “Apart from health, you aren’t doing yourself any good. I hear you’re looking out for a job, and it’s only fair to warn you that you’re getting a bad name with men and women. D’you like candid advice?”

“I don’t mind it from you.”

“Well, I should clear out of this country. There’s too little work for you, too much drink and too many women. Your record in the war was too creditable to fritter away in bars and promenades. Take a couple of years to steady down and then come home and get married. You’re not fit to marry till you’ve got your nerve-centres back in place.”

Gaymer refilled his glass and replaced the decanter carefully; the syphon was a noisy complication, so he dispensed with it.

“I haven’t the least idea what I want to do,” he yawned.

“Well, you want to be a decent member of society.”

“Not in the least! Before the war I wanted to make money and have a good time; I enjoyed the war because I liked flying... and I liked killing. There was no ‘thin red line’ about me; I wasn’t risking my skin for the people here. It was good fun, though and I believe I killed more French than Germans. Now I want to have a good time again.”

“And what constitutes a good time?,” asked O’Rane.

“Oh, I don’t know. The usual things... Human nature’s constant.”

“And it’s amazing how soon human nature gets tired of wine, women and song. Short of sudden death, you’ve a long life before you still; you must aim at something permanent. And the only permanent things you’re going for at present are cirrhosis of the liver and general paralysis... Were you in love with this Maitland child?”

Gaymer turned in his chair so quickly that he upset his tumbler; as he picked it up, he wondered if O’Rane knew that blindness alone saved him from having the remains of the brandy thrown in his face... After a moment’s industrious mopping, Gaymer looked up and was bewildered to find his ill-temper evaporating. Criticism, advice and questions were jerked out with a naked candour which mysteriously robbed them of offence.

“She’s—a pretty kid,” he answered carelessly.

“I’ve never seen her, of course. She’s nothing more?” asked O’Rane.

“I was quite fond of her.”

“Nothing more?”

“I’m fond of her still.”

“Nothing more?”

Gaymer impatiently broke three matches before he could light his cigarette.

“What more d’you want?,” he asked petulantly.

“Well, does she or any woman mean enough to you to make you want to be a decent member of society?... That’s your fourth brandy! Yes, I know you spilt one... That’s why I said you weren’t fit to marry yet. Would you knock off drink and give up hanging about with every other woman you see and start in to earn a decent living?”

A patter of light feet and a rustle of clothes heralded Sonia’s return. She hurried to the writing-table, kissing her husband on the way, rummaged among a litter of papers and hurried out again, leaving the same faint fragrance of violets as a provocative reminder of her presence.

“I’m rather out of favour at present,” said Gaymer, as he stood up and began to inspect the room with critical envy.

“There are other women in the world. This one’s much too much of a child for you.”

“I’m not so sure. I’d do a lot for—for a woman I loved. Oh, I’d be the complete reformed character,” he added with a laugh that was a contemptuous antidote to his sincerity of a moment before.

“Well, I’m glad to see that you have one vulnerable spot... It’s time to pull up.”

Gaymer looked at him for a moment without understanding.

“I wonder what you’re trying to get at..,” he murmured.

Refusing the offer of a seat in Sonia’s car, he strolled towards Buckingham Gate and arranged to have his luggage collected from the O’Ranes’ house. There had been no purpose in going there, no purpose in declining the lift, no purpose in anything. He could not make up his mind or decide what he wanted to do next. After ordering luncheon at home because he did not want to meet people at his club, he countermanded the order and set out aimlessly across the Park. The government offices were emitting a stream of girl-clerks, and he paused to watch them with disfavour; other women were curiously unattractive at this moment... One o’clock... He too must have something to eat....

Instead of walking to his club, Gaymer found himself halting irresolutely at the corner of Ryder Street. It was in one of these houses that Ivy worked now; at any moment she might come out, he could invite her to lunch with him... He waited for half-an-hour and then turned disgustedly into St. James’ Street. Ivy was not coming out. Eric Lane had taken possession of her with so much assurance that no one else was allowed to see her....

An errand-boy swept round the corner on the wrong side of the road and sent his front wheel over Gaymer’s toes before overbalancing with basket and bicycle. Gaymer surveyed him dispassionately for a moment and then broke into such abuse that a crowd began to collect. The furious rush of foul language eased a pressure which was becoming unbearable. The boy was scared, the onlookers were cynically amused; amusement changed to inarticulate sympathy as Gaymer paused, drew breath and started again; he was still hurling maledictions when boy and bicycle had disappeared from sight, and the idlers raised a murmur of sympathy as a white-whiskered admiral intervened in defence of decency.

“Mind your own blasted business, curse you!,” Gaymer roared in savage delight at finding a new antagonist.

“Another word, and I give you in charge for using obscene language,” threatened the admiral.

The crowd, which was beginning to disperse, collected again and raised a subdued cheer in support of the old man. “Quite right too!,” Gaymer heard. “Perfectly disgusting... Ashamed of himself...” He filled his lungs for an annihilating attack on them all; but, before he could deliver it, Carstairs elbowed his way through the onlookers and demanded to know what was amiss.

“Swine of a boy runs his bloody machine over my toes...,” Gaymer began.

“Well, don’t make such a row about it! Come to the club and have some lunch.”

Gaymer directed a last furious look at his muddy boots, then turned from Carstairs and walked rapidly down Piccadilly. He would have liked to tell the interfering old admiral what he thought of him; he would have liked to thrash that damned boy, to thrash any one... Cursing him was good in its way, but he had been stopped before he attained any satisfaction....

The desire for food had passed; but Gaymer reached his club in time for a drink and felt better for it. The desire for a fight remained. In the open noon of his life as a soldier he had never known this maddening itch of truculence. To be able to call some one a German!... He prowled through the smoking-room in search of a victim, but people would only say “Hullo, Johnny! Coming to join us?”... And he had already been reported to the committee and forced to apologize “for conduct unworthy of a gentleman” in the card-room....

At five o’clock he returned to Ryder Street, only remembering when it was too late that he had not yet looked for Eric Lane’s number in the directory. Ivy must come out some time!... Unless she spent the night there... Gaymer checked in his short, loathed beat, for this was a question that had to be faced and answered. Imprimis, all these writers—and especially the fellows connected with the stage who could blackmail a girl before they would give her a speaking part—helped themselves to anything that came their way; they were an immoral lot, but a man did not need to be a plaster saint in order to feel that some forms of immorality were worse than others, that the lethal chamber was the only place for the long-haired gang who pretended to be above the ordinary rules... Lane did not grow his hair long, he had been taken up by quite decent people; but what was true of all was true of one. He posed as a delicate idealist—with the caressing voice of a woman and a soulful, ‘not-long-for-this-world’ look in his eyes; so familiar was the pose become that Gaymer had been deceived by it into thinking he had nothing to fear. The fellow talked “spiritual beauty” to a little fool like Ivy until he won her, soul and body... And all the time looking like a parson....

Gaymer rang at the nearest door without looking at the number. He might have the luck to meet Ivy; failing that, he could always bait the parson-poet... Somewhere inside, a clock chimed seven, and he flung away in disgust without waiting for the door to be opened. Two hours! Ivy was home by now. Two hours walking up and down that forsaken street because a consumptive-looking Grub Street hack had walked off with the girl that he wanted... What could she see in him? Gaymer caught sight of his own sturdy, well-groomed reflection in a shop-window. In the name of Heaven, what could she see in the fellow?

It was still broad daylight, owing to this accursed “summer time”; and London was never so intolerable as by day. He walked aimlessly along Piccadilly and up Regent Street, along Oxford Street and up Tottenham Court Road. His course would be a zig-zag on the map... Zig-zag... Everything was zig-zag; purposeless, wearisome... He remembered suddenly that he had eaten no food all day. Zig-zag... His feet had strayed out of Tottenham Court Road into a side-street, and he found himself staring at a newly painted shop-front. Inside, a band was playing; appetizing savours of hot food floated up from the basement; and women with arms white and eyes darkly mysterious in the gathering dusk pattered through the door-way with a half-glance back in universal invitation.

“What’s this place?,” Gaymer asked the commissionaire.

“Fleur de Lys Dance Club, sir.”

“Well, I want to be a member. Make up a name for me and fix it with the secretary. Add my subscription to the dinner-bill and keep this for yourself.”

Without waiting for an answer, Gaymer walked through the hall, threw his hat on to a counter at the end and mounted to a gallery overlooking a garish green-and-gold ball-room. Dinner was being served at small tables round three sides of the gallery; in the fourth was ensconced a negro band. Gaymer looked and listened, forgetting himself for a moment in his effort to classify the place and the company. Cheap and tawdry, he decided, without even the appearance of spontaneous hilarity; respectable, in all probability... The men looked like clerks earnestly aping the life of gaiety and wantonness created for them in illustrated papers and cinematograph theatres. The women, presumably, were typists, milliners, hotel clerks, mannequins. In cut and material their clothes were too good to have been bought new; here and there a draggled flounce or soiled shoe hinted at long service. Gaymer had always wondered what girls did with their cast-off finery....

It was a new world peopled by an unknown race, and he was uncertain of the technique for gaining admittance. At the table nearest to him a girl was sitting alone, and he asked leave to join her.

She did not know whether to be flattered or affronted that he had addressed her; and Gaymer was confirmed in his contemptuous diagnosis of the company’s narrow respectability. As she lacked experience and dignity to assert herself, he decided that she would respond to treatment which took her for granted. He smiled and sat down with confident composure.

“I’m waiting for my friend,” the girl answered doubtfully, looking past him to the door.

Gaymer inspected her critically. She was young, dark and anÆmic with thin arms and a thin back bare to the waist; her extravagantly low-cut dress was incongruously rich half-covering to the meagre body which it so generously revealed, but she had abundant hair, warm lips and restless dark eyes. He looked away for a moment at the other women in their neighbourhood and decided that he had done well in choosing her; then he looked towards the door, trying to identify her “friend”.

“You’re not with that bandy-legged Yid, are you?,” he asked with disfavour, as a man left the door and approached their table.

The girl looked at him in open-mouthed surprise.

“Please not to speak like that about my friend!,” she exclaimed.

“You’ll enjoy yourself much more with me.”

“We—haven’t been introduced... And I can’t give him the go-by,” she answered uncertainly, impressed in spite of herself by his assurance.

“This is a table for two,” said Gaymer significantly, picking up the wine-list. “What are you going to drink?... God, what assorted poison! We’ll try the champagne; if it’s not fit to drink, we can fall back on an honest brandy and soda. What are you going to eat?”

Calling to a waiter, he began ordering dinner and was still absorbed in his task when the “friend” touched his shoulder and murmured deferentially:

“I think you’ve taken my chair, sir.”

Gaymer glanced up for a moment and then turned to his study of the wine-list.

“I don’t like Jews,” he observed.

“This lady... I had to see about a ticket for her—”

“I don’t like Jews,” Gaymer repeated. “Waiter! Where the devil’s our waiter gone to? Here, a bottle of forty-three. And ice it properly first.” Then he looked up again at the man whose chair he had taken. “I’ve spoken about this before. Will you go away?”

The man stared at him for a moment, flushed and turned to the girl.

“We’ll find another table, Gracie,” he said with a tremble in his voice.

“Gracie’s dining with me,” said Gaymer. “She’s much too good for you. If you go away at once, there need be no unpleasantness. If you persist in butting in where you’re not wanted...” He paused to recollect his encounter with the errand-boy in Piccadilly, the fruitless hours of patrol in Ryder Street... “I shall send you to Abraham’s bosom at such a pace that you’ll come out the other side.”

The young Jew hesitated and looked appealingly at the girl.

“I don’t want a scene—” he began.

“You’ll get one unbroken film from here to the nearest mortuary, if you’ve not gone in fifteen seconds,” said Gaymer, laying his watch on the table. “One, two, three, four....”

“I’m going to speak to the secretary,” said the young Jew with dignity. “Bear witness, Gracie! He started it!... Chucked out! That’s what’ll happen to you, sir!”

As he hurried away, Gaymer breathed luxuriantly.

“It’s a pity there’s not more lynching in England,” he observed, “but I’m glad I came in time to keep him from molesting you any further.”

“You didn’t ought to have treated him like that,” giggled the girl, who had enjoyed every moment of the altercation and was now looking furtively at the door in the hope of seeing her cavalier returning with the secretary. “He’ll never speak to me again.”

“He certainly won’t while I’m here. And, if I have any trouble, he’ll never speak to any one this side of the grave... Go to him, if you prefer it,” he added brusquely. “So far as I know, I’ve never killed a Jew yet. One ought to, just for the experience.”

“The things you say!,” cried the girl. “I’d—like to stay, only poor Mr. Lewis... You scared him away, no mistake... Champagne. Shall I go all funny if I drink it?”

“I hope so,” Gaymer answered, raising his glass cautiously. “God! it’s like treacle! Waiter, if you’ve any brandy fit to drink, bring it here!”

As his rival did not reappear, Gaymer cast about for other means of distraction. Once again he had been disappointed of his fight; and there was no satisfaction in accumulating the spoils of victory without a struggle. It was something, indeed, that he could “scare away” another man and win over a woman by a mere word; but the woman was not worth trouble... and the man was only fit to thrash....

“What’s your other name, Gracie?,” he asked abruptly. “What d’you do with yourself all day? Tell me all your absorbing life-history.”

Under the influence of the champagne, which he left her to drink by herself, the girl’s tongue was loosened; and, though he paid little attention to what she was saying, Gaymer learned before the end of dinner that she was confidential typist to an export merchant, that she lived at Tottenham and that she was at that moment supposed to be spending the night with another girl from the same office and going to a concert. The young Jew was book-keeper in a neighbouring office and had long desired to marry her.

“But I keep him at a distance,” she confided. “I want to have a look round before I settle down. No sprees then,” she added regretfully.

“Married life’s what you make it,” said Gaymer. “Come and dance.”

Dinner had put him in good humour, and he was now less contemptuously critical. Gracie had a certain elemental charm, holding herself well, walking well and, as she danced, melting into his arms until she seemed a part of him. The champagne had brought colour into her cheeks, and her eyes shone in ecstasy. The crash and jerk, the bleating and rumble of the band sent a thrill of dancing madness through her nerves, and at Gaymer’s touch she shivered and became still as though she were a bird and his hand had closed over her fluttering wings....

After a riot of rag-time the orchestra subsided into a waltz.

“If you—could care—for me,” she hummed, “as I—could care—for you-ou....”

“Don’t!” Gaymer snapped.

She was all right until she opened her mouth; but, when she spoke, there was commonness without depravity. He doubted whether she was clever enough to shake off her accent, her phrases, her devastating gentility. And, if she never spoke, there was little companionship in the adventure. Already she was giving him a foretaste of what their relations would be... mechanical, soulless, without intimacy or tenderness; they danced for ten minutes and then went back to their table in the gallery for a drink and a cigarette, then danced again. And, whenever the music stopped, he had to keep her from talking....

“I wonder what’s happened to Mr. Lewis?,” she murmured.

“Don’t bother about him... I say, Gracie, have you had enough of this? I’m as hot as hell in these thick clothes. Let’s get some air.”

“Where are you going to?,” she asked, as he led her into the hall.

“We’ll talk about that later. Get your cloak.”

The girl stopped short and looked at him, her eyes charged with fear.

“I... I must go home,” she stammered.

“Get your cloak,” Gaymer repeated. “I’ll try to find a taxi.”

They drove down Tottenham Court Road without speaking. Gaymer was tired, restless and bored, the girl fascinated and terrified. Once she laid her hand on his wrist and asked with dry lips where he was taking her.

“Home.”

“I didn’t ought to!... I mustn’t,” she cried.

Gaymer put his arm round her thin shoulders and kissed her.

“Don’t you want to?,” he asked.

“I didn’t ought to.”

He withdrew his arm and lay back in his own corner:

“It’s a free country. Don’t come if you don’t like.”

There was a second silence, and the girl turned to him timidly, putting her hands on his shoulders and looking at him through a mist of tears.

“I’m frightened,” she whispered. “Be nice to me! Do you want me?”

Gaymer kissed her mechanically and with contempt for her cheap surrender. He had asserted himself against the young Jew and against this girl, but the proof of power brought him no satisfaction. For a week or two Gracie might amuse him; then they would grow tired of each other, there would be recriminations and a scene, he would have to find some one to take her place. And, while she was with him, she had nothing but her meagre looks and the servile passion which he had inspired. They might live together, but he would never deign to share his life with her....

“Is it far?,” she asked. “I’m so tired.”

Gaymer did not care whether she was tired or not; nothing that she could say or do would rouse him to tenderness; nothing that could happen to her would stir him to concern. She was useful, she could never be essential; a servant to be engaged and replaced. He despised her because she could give him no companionship; very soon, he knew, he would loathe her....

“If you’re tired, you’d better go home,” he said.

“You are horrid to me!,” she whimpered.

“Sorry! But it’s all a mistake.” He tapped on the window until the taxi stopped. “I’m going to get out. You take this on home. Give this to the man. Kiss me good-bye and part friends! You have enjoyed yourself, I hope. Good-bye, Gracie.”

He thrust a note into her hand, opened the door and walked rapidly away. The driver waited and then came to the window for orders; he was lazily amused to see a girl sitting forward with her cloak on the floor and her hands locked between her knees, staring in bewilderment at the vanishing form of her late companion. Her lips were parted, her eyes strained; she shivered and pulled the cloak over her bare shoulders and back; the movement seemed to break a spell and she roused to give an address. As the taxi turned, she took a last look over her shoulder, then dropped her head between her hands to think; at the same moment the driver looked around with a leer at her expression of perplexity, in which a wave of disappointment was succeeded by a wave of thankfulness and then a second wave of disappointment. She chewed petulantly at a corner of a crumpled handkerchief, then hid her face and began to cry.

Gaymer walked south, girding at himself. Nothing that he could do was right... He was mercifully rid of a woman whom he might well have strangled before morning. But he was not rid of the maddening loneliness which had tortured him all day, racking him with an extra twist every time that he saw a man and girl perambulating arm-in-arm....

At two o’clock he found himself once more in Ryder Street, pacing up and down for no better reason than that he had already paced up and down there for so many hours. Ivy could not be there at two o’clock... He turned into St. James’ Street and crossed the Park to Eaton Place, led thereto by instinct and well knowing that he would find no satisfaction in staring at a blind window. It was more than time for him to be in bed, but he could not muster courage to enter his flat. Too many reminders of Ivy lingered to haunt him in each derisory void room. A game thrown away through carelessness... He could have held her; granted opportunity, he could recapture her as easily as he had captured the yellow woman with the silly name at the counter-jumpers’ carnival off Tottenham Court Road....

It was a pity to let that young Jew escape without a hiding....

A pity that he had not thrashed that errand-boy....

Gracie was not the girl that he wanted, but she was better than nothing. And he had let her go....

Three o’clock....

Gaymer walked to Jermyn Street in the grey chill of a summer morning. He did not greatly want a Turkish bath, but it would be good for him after the indifferent liquor that he had been consuming all day. And he could sleep for a few hours. And Jermyn Street was convenient for the parson-poet’s flat....

Before he began the bath he must remember to look up the fellow’s address in the directory....