The room was lined with bookshelves, and conspicuous therein were a long row of foolish pretentious volumes, the “works” of Lagune—­the witless, meandering imitation of philosophy that occupied his life.  Along the cornices were busts of Plato, Socrates, and Newton.  Behind Ethel was the great man’s desk with its green-shaded electric light, and littered with proofs and copies of Hesperus, “A Paper for Doubters,” which, with her assistance, he edited, published, compiled, wrote, and (without her help) paid for and read.  A pen, flung down forcibly, quivered erect with its one surviving nib in the blotting pad.  Mr. Lagune had flung it down.

The collapse of the previous night had distressed him dreadfully, and ever and again before his retreat he had been breaking into passionate monologue.  The ruin of a life-work, it was, no less.  Surely she had known that Chaffery was a cheat.  Had she not known?  Silence.  “After so many kindnesses—­”

She interrupted him with a wailing, “Oh, I know—­I know.”

But Lagune was remorseless and insisted she had betrayed him, worse—­made him ridiculous!  Look at the “work” he had undertaken at South Kensington—­how could he go on with that now?  How could he find the heart?  When his own typewriter sacrificed him to her stepfather’s trickery?  “Trickery!”

The gesticulating hands became active, the grey eyes dilated with indignation, the piping voice eloquent.

“If he hadn’t cheated you, someone else would,” was Ethel’s inadequate muttered retort, unheard by the seeker after phenomena.

It was perhaps not so bad as dismissal, but it certainly lasted longer.  And at home was Chaffery, grimly malignant at her failure to secure that pneumatic glove.  He had no right to blame her, he really had not; but a disturbed temper is apt to falsify the scales of justice.  The tambourine, he insisted, he could have explained by saying he put up his hand to catch it and protect his head directly Smithers moved.  But the pneumatic glove there was no explaining.  He had made a chance for her to secure it when he had pretended to faint.  It was rubbish to say anyone could have been looking on the table then—­rubbish.

Beside that significant wreck of a pen stood a little carriage clock in a case, and this suddenly lifted a slender voice and announced five.  She turned round on her stool and sat staring at the clock.  She smiled with the corners of her mouth down.  “Home,” she said, “and begin again.  It’s like battledore and shuttlecock....

“I was silly....

“I suppose I’ve brought it on myself.  I ought to have picked it up, I suppose.  I had time....

“Cheats ... just cheats.

“I never thought I should see him again....

“He was ashamed, of course....  He had his own friends.”

For a space she sat still, staring blankly before her.  She sighed, rubbed a knuckle in a reddened eye, rose.