At the thought of that new life together that was drawing so near, she came into his head, vivid and near and warm....

He recovered himself from a day dream.  He became aware of a library attendant down the room leaning forward over his desk, gnawing the tip of a paper knife after the fashion of South Kensington library attendants, and staring at him curiously.  It occurred to Lewisham that thought reading was one of the most possible things in the world.  He blushed, rose clumsily and took the volume of the Encyclopaedia back to its shelf.

He found the selection of lodgings a difficult business.  After his first essay he began to fancy himself a suspicious-looking character, and that perhaps hampered him.  He had chosen the district southward of the Brompton Road.  It had one disadvantage—­he might blunder into a house with a fellow-student....  Not that it mattered vitally.  But the fact is, it is rather unusual for married couples to live permanently in furnished lodgings in London.  People who are too poor to take a house or a flat commonly find it best to take part of a house or unfurnished apartments.  There are a hundred couples living in unfurnished rooms (with “the use of the kitchen”) to one in furnished in London.  The absence of furniture predicates a dangerous want of capital to the discreet landlady.  The first landlady Lewisham interviewed didn’t like ladies, they required such a lot of attendance; the second was of the same mind; the third told Mr. Lewisham he was “youngish to be married;” the fourth said she only “did” for single “gents.”  The fifth was a young person with an arch manner, who liked to know all about people she took in, and subjected Lewisham to a searching cross-examination.  When she had spitted him in a downright lie or so, she expressed an opinion that her rooms “would scarcely do,” and bowed him amiably out.

He cooled his ears and cheeks by walking up and down the street for a space, and then tried again.  This landlady was a terrible and pitiful person, so grey and dusty she was, and her face deep lined with dust and trouble and labour.  She wore a dirty cap that was all askew.  She took Lewisham up into a threadbare room on the first floor, “There’s the use of a piano,” she said, and indicated an instrument with a front of torn green silk.  Lewisham opened the keyboard and evoked a vibration of broken strings.  He took one further survey of the dismal place, “Eighteen shillings,” he said.  “Thank you ...  I’ll let you know.”  The woman smiled with the corners of her mouth down, and without a word moved wearily towards the door.  Lewisham felt a transient wonder at her hopeless position, but he did not pursue the inquiry.