forth, with a sense of refreshment, for a brisk walk among the fens, the sedges, the hedgerows, the reed-fringed pools, the pollard willows that would in due course be putting forth their tender shoots of palest green.  And then, once more in his rooms, with the curtains drawn and the candles lit, he would turn to his book-shelves and choose from among them some old book that he knew and loved, or maybe some quite new book by that writer whose works were most dear to him because in them he seemed always to know so precisely what the author would say next, and because he found in their fine-spun repetitions a singular repose, a sense of security, an earnest of calm and continuity, as though he were reading over again one of those wise copy-books that he had so loved in boyhood, or were listening to the sounds made on a piano by some modest, very conscientious young girl with a pale red pig-tail, practising her scales, very gently, hour after hour, next door.

PERKINS AND MANKIND

By

H.G.  W*LLS

Chapter XX

Sec.1.

It was the Christmas party at Heighton that was one of the turning-points in Perkins’ life.  The Duchess had sent him a three-page wire in the hyperbolical style of her class, conveying a vague impression that she and the Duke had arranged to commit suicide together if Perkins didn’t “chuck” any previous engagement he had made.  And Perkins had felt in a slipshod sort of way—­for at this period he was incapable of ordered thought—­he might as well be at Heighton as anywhere....

The enormous house was almost full.  There must have been upwards of fifty people sitting down to every meal.  Many of these were members of the family.  Perkins was able to recognise them by their unconvoluted ears—­the well-known Grifford ear, transmitted from one generation to another.  For the rest there were the usual lot from the Front Benches and the Embassies.  Evesham was there, clutching at the lapels of his coat; and the Prescotts—­he with his massive mask of a face, and she with her quick, hawk-like ways, talking about two things at a time; old Tommy Strickland, with his monocle and his dropped g’s, telling you what he had once said to Mr. Disraeli; Boubou Seaforth and his American wife; John Pirram, ardent and elegant, spouting old French lyrics; and a score of others.

Perkins had got used to them by now.  He no longer wondered what they were “up to,” for he knew they were up to nothing whatever.  He reflected, while he was dressing for dinner on Christmas night, how odd it was he had ever thought of Using them.  He might as well have hoped to Use the Dresden shepherds and shepherdesses that grinned out in the last stages of refinement at him from the glazed cabinets in the drawing-rooms....  Or the Labour Members themselves....

True there was Evesham.  He had shown an exquisitely open mind about the whole thing.  He had at once grasped the underlying principles, thrown out some amazingly luminous suggestions.  Oh yes, Evesham was a statesman, right enough.  But had even he ever really believed in the idea of a Provisional Government of England by the Female Foundlings?