I sprang suddenly to my feet—­a sensation that I had had before, that was not new to me, a remembered fear, had me fast; a remembered voice seemed to speak clearly incomprehensible words that had moved me before.  The sheer faces of the enormous buildings near at hand seemed to topple forwards like cliffs in an earthquake, and for an instant I saw beyond them into unknown depths that I had seen into before.  It was as if the shadow of annihilation had passed over them beneath the sunshine.  Then they returned to rest; motionless, but with a changed aspect.

“This is too absurd,” I said to myself.  “I am not well.”  I was certainly unfit for any sort of work.  “But I must get through the day somehow.”  To-morrow ... to-morrow....  I had a pale vision of her face as it had appeared to me at sunset on the first day I had met her.

I went back to my club—­to lunch, of course.  I had no appetite, but I was tormented by the idea of an interminable afternoon before me.  I sat idly for a long time.  Behind my back two men were talking.

“Churchill ... oh, no better than the rest.  He only wants to be found out.  If I’ve any nose for that sort of thing, there’s something in the air.  It’s absurd to be told that he knew nothing about it....  You’ve seen the Hour?” I got up to go away, but suddenly found myself standing by their table.

“You are unjust,” I said.  They looked up at me together with an immense surprise.  I didn’t know them and I passed on.  But I heard one of them ask: 

“Who’s that fellow?” ...

“Oh—­Etchingham Granger....”

“Is he queer?” the other postulated.

I went slowly down the great staircase.  A knot of men was huddled round the tape machine; others came, half trotting, half walking, to peer over heads, under arm-pits.

“What’s the matter with that thing?” I asked of one of them.

“Oh, Grogram’s up,” he said, and passed me.  Someone from a point of vantage read out: 

“The Leader of the House (Sir C. Grogram, Devonport) said that....”  The words came haltingly to my ears as the man’s voice followed the jerks of the little instrument “... the Government obviously could not ... alter its policy at ... eleventh hour ... at dictates of ... quite irresponsible person in one of ... the daily ... papers.”

I was wondering whether it was Soane or Callan who was poor old Grogram’s “quite irresponsible person,” when I caught the sound of Gurnard’s name.  I turned irritably away.  I didn’t want to hear that fool read out the words of that....  It was like the warning croak of a raven in an old ballad.

I began desultorily to descend to the smoking-room.  In the Cimmerian gloom of the stairway the voice of a pursuer hailed me.

“I say, Granger!  I say, Granger!”

I looked back.  The man was one of the rats of the lower journalism, large-boned, rubicund, asthmatic; a mass of flesh that might, to the advantage of his country and himself, have served as a cavalry trooper.  He puffed stertorously down towards me.