lovely ceilings, a forged-iron stair-rail out of Paradise; a house appreciably nearer to the centre than the one in Elm Park Road, and with a lower rental.  George would have taken the house, had not Lois pointed out to him its fatal disadvantage, which had escaped him, namely, that people simply did not live in Fitzroy Square.  Instantly Lois entered Fitzroy Square, George knew himself for a blind fool.  Of course the house was impossible.  He was positively ashamed to show her the house.  She admitted that it was beautiful.  So Elm Park Road was finally selected, Elm Park Road being a street where people could, and in fact did, live.  It was astounding how Lois, with her small and fragmentary knowledge of London, yet knew, precisely and infallibly, by instinct, by the sound of the names of the thoroughfares, by magic diabolical or celestial, what streets were inhabitable and what were not.  And something in George agreed with her.

He now rummaged among hat-boxes beneath the beds, pulled one out, and discovered a straw hat in it.

“Will it do?” he questioned doubtfully.

“Let me look at it.”

He approached her and gave her the hat, which she carefully examined, frowning.

“Put it on,” she said.

He put it on, and she gazed at him for what seemed to him an unnecessarily long time.  His thought was that she liked to hold him under her gaze.

“Well?” he exclaimed impatiently.

“It’s quite all right,” she said.  “What’s the matter with it?  It makes you look about fourteen.”  He felt envy in her voice.  Then she added:  “But surely you won’t be able to wear that thing to-morrow?”

“Of course not.  I only want it for this afternoon....  This sun.”

“Oh!” she cried.  “I do think it’s a shame I can’t go to the Opening!  It’s just my luck.”

He considered that she arraigned her luck much too often; he considered that on the whole her luck was decidedly good.  But he knew that she had to be humoured.  It was her right to be humoured.

“Yes,” he said judicially and rather shortly.  “I’m sorry too!  But what are you going to do about it?  If you can’t go, you can’t.  And you know it’s absolutely out of the question.”  As a fact he was glad that her condition made such an excursion impossible for her.  She would certainly have been rather a ticklish handful for him at the Opening.

“But I should so have enjoyed it!” she insisted, with emphasis.

There it was, the thirst for enjoyment, pleasure!  The supreme, unslakable thirst!  She had always had it, and he had always hardened himself against it—­while often, nevertheless, accepting with secret pleasure the satisfactions of her thirst.  Thus, for example, in the matter of dancing.  She had shared to the full in the extraordinary craze for dancing which had held the West End for several years.  Owing to her initiative they had belonged to two dancing clubs whose members met weekly in the