“I don’t suppose you have enough to pay for supper, anyway,” he said roughly, “or you’ll go without your lunch to-morrow.  Don’t be an idiot.  Look after yourself and I’ll look after myself.  Besides, if you think I’m not going to have a square meal to-night you’re enormously mistaken.  I’m going to dine well—­where you’ll never Set your foot, not until you’re earning more than 250 pounds a year, at any rate.”

“Word of honour?”

“Oh, word of honour, of course.”

A shy relief came into the pinched and freckled face.

“Oh, well then—­but I do want you to meet all the same; you see, she’d like it—­she knows all about you.  I’m always bragging about you.  Perhaps I could bring her round—­if Miss Forsyth wouldn’t mind—­if she’s well enough.”

Robert Stonehouse half turned away, as though shrinking from an unwelcome, painful touch.

“She’s all right.”

“Then may we come?  I’m not afraid of Miss Forsyth.  She’s an understanding person.  She won’t think people common because of their aitches.  Give her my love, won’t you, Robert.  And good night.”

“Oh, good night!” He added quickly, sullenly:  “You look blue with cold.  Why don’t you wear a decent coat?  It’s idiotic!”

“Because my coat isn’t decent.  I don’t want her to see me shabby.  And I like to pretend I’m rather a strong, dashing fellow who doesn’t mind things.  Besides, look at yourself!”

“I’m different.”

“You needn’t rub it in.”  He was gay now with an expectation that bubbled up in him like a fountain.  He made as though to salute Robert solemnly and then remembered and clutched at his wind-blown hair instead.  “Oh, my hat!  Well, it will make Connie laugh like anything!” he said.

2

To be a habitue of Brown’s was to prove yourself a person of some means and solid discrimination.  At Brown’s you could get cuts from the joint, a porter-house steak, apple tart, and a good boiled pudding as nowhere else in the world.  You went in through the swinging doors an ordinary and fallible human being, and you came out feeling you had been fed on the very stuff which made the Empire.  You were slightly stupefied, but you were also superbly, magnificently unbeatable.

Mr. Brown was an Englishman.  But he did not glory in the fact.  It was, as he had explained to Robert one night, his kindly, serious face glowing in the reflection from the grill, a tragedy.

“To be born an Englishman and a cook—­it’s like being born a bird without wings.  You can’t soar—­not however hard you try—­not above roasts and boils.  Take vegetables.  An Englishman natur’lly boils.  And it’s no good going against nature.  You’re a doctor—­or going to be—­and you know that.  You’ve got to do the best you can, but you can’t do more.  That’s my motto.  But if I’d been born a Frenchman——­ Well it’s no use dreaming.  If them potatoes are ready, Jim, so’m I.”