As the painter took Marsden’s arm and entered the restaurant, he noticed that while the outside of the place still retained traces of the old, its inside was entirely new.  Its cheap glittering wall-mirrors, that gave a false impression of the actual size of the place, its Loves and Shepherdesses painted in the style of the carts of the vendors of ice-cream, its hat-racks and its four-bladed propeller that set the air slowly in motion at the farther end of the room, might all have been matched in a dozen similar establishments within hail of a cab-whistle.  Its gelatine-written menu-cards announced that one might dine there a la carte or table d’hote for two shillings.  Neither the cooking nor the service had influenced Romarin in his choice of a place to dine at.

He made a gesture to the waiter who advanced to help him on with his coat that Marsden was to be assisted first; but Marsden, with a grunted “All right,” had already helped himself.  A glimpse of the interior of the coat told Romarin why Marsden kept waiters at arm’s-length.  A little twinge of compunction took him that his own overcoat should be fur-collared and lined with silk.

They sat down at a corner table not far from the slowly moving four-bladed propeller.

“Now we can talk,” Romarin said.  “I’m glad, glad to see you again, Marsden.”

It was a peculiarly vicious face that he saw, corrugated about the brows, and with stiff iron-grey hair untrimmed about the ears.  It shocked Romarin a little; he had hardly looked to see certain things so accentuated by the passage of time.  Romarin’s own brow was high and bald and benign, and his beard was like a broad shield of silver.

“You’re glad, are you?” said Marsden, as they sat down facing one another.  “Well, I’m glad—­to be seen with you.  It’ll revive my credit a bit.  There’s a fellow across there has recognised you already by your photographs in the papers....  I assume I may...?”

He made a little upward movement of his hand.  It was a gin and bitters Marsden assumed he might have.  Romarin ordered it; he himself did not take one.  Marsden tossed down the aperitif at one gulp; then he reached for his roll, pulled it to pieces, and—­Romarin remembered how in the old days Marsden had always eaten bread like that—­began to throw bullets of bread into his mouth.  Formerly this habit had irritated Romarin intensely; now ... well, well, Life uses some of us better than others.  Small blame to these if they throw up the struggle.  Marsden, poor devil ... but the arrival of the soup interrupted Romarin’s meditation.  He consulted the violet-written card, ordered the succeeding courses, and the two men ate for some minutes in silence.

“Well,” said Romarin presently, pushing away his plate and wiping his white moustache, “are you still a Romanticist, Marsden?”

Marsden, who had tucked his napkin between two of the buttons of his frayed waistcoat, looked suspiciously across the glass with the dregs of the gin and bitters that he had half raised to his lips.