But—­Romarin looked at his watch again—­it was rather like Marsden to be late.  Marsden had always been like that—­had come and gone pretty much as he had pleased, regardless of inconvenience to others.  But, doubtless, he had had to walk.  If all reports were true, Marsden had not made very much of his life in the way of worldly success, and Romarin, sorry to hear it, had wished he could give him a leg-up.  Even a good man cannot do much when the current of his life sets against him in a tide of persistent ill-luck, and Romarin, honoured and successful, yet knew that he had been one of the lucky ones....

But it was just like Marsden to be late, for all that.

At first Romarin did not recognise him when he turned the corner of the street and walked towards him.  He hadn’t made up his mind beforehand exactly how he had expected Marsden to look, but he was conscious that he didn’t look it.  It was not the short stubble of grey beard, so short that it seemed to hesitate between beard and unshavenness; it was not the figure nor carriage—­clothes alter that, and the clothes of the man who was advancing to meet Romarin were, to put it bluntly, shabby; nor was it... but Romarin did not know what it was in the advancing figure that for the moment found no response in his memory.  He was already within half a dozen yards of the men who were moving the scenery from the theatre into the tumbril, and one of the workmen put up his hand as the edge of a fresh “wing” appeared....

But at the sound of his voice the same thing happened that had happened when the clock had struck seven.  Romarin found himself suddenly expectant, attentive, and then again curiously satisfied in his memory.  Marsden’s voice at least had not changed; it was as in the old days—­a little envious, sarcastic, accepting lower interpretations somewhat willingly, somewhat grudging of better ones.  It completed the taking back of Romarin that the chiming of the clock, the doorknocker, the grouping of the chimney-stack and the crack in the flagstone had begun.

“Well, my distinguished Academician, my—­”

Marsden’s voice sounded across the group of scene-shifters...

“’Alf a mo, if you please, guv’nor,” said another voice...

For a moment the painted “wing” shut them off from one another.

* * * * *

In that moment Romarin’s accident befell him.  If its essential nature is related in arbitrary terms, it is that there are no other terms to relate it in.  It is a decoded cipher, which can be restored to its cryptic form as Romarin subsequently restored it.

* * * * *