“But what’s to be done?” he started again; “what’s to be done....  I tell you....  My daughter, you know, she’s very brave, she said to me this morning she could work; but she couldn’t, you know; she’s not been brought up to that sort of thing ... not even typewriting ... and so ... we’re all ruined ... everyone of us.  And I’ve more than fifty hands, counting Mr. Lea, and they’ll all have to go.  It’s horrible....  I trusted you, Granger, you know; I trusted you, and they say up there that you....”  I turned away from him.  I couldn’t bear to see the bewildered fear in his eyes.  “So many of us,” he began again, “everyone I know....  I told them to buy and ...  But you might have let us know, Granger, you might have.  Think of my poor daughter.”

I wanted to say something to the man, wanted to horribly; but there wasn’t anything to say—­not a word.  I was sorry.  I took up a paper that sprawled on one of the purple ottomans.  I stood with my back to this haggard man and pretended to read.

I noticed incredulously that I was swaying on my legs.  I looked round me.  Two old men were asleep in armchairs under the gloomy windows.  One had his head thrown back, the other was crumpled forward into himself; his frail, white hand just touched the floor.  A little further off two young men were talking; they had the air of conspirators over their empty coffee cups.

I was conscious that Polehampton had left me, that he had gone from behind me; but I don’t think I was conscious of the passage of time.  God knows how long I stood there.  Now and then I saw Polehampton’s face before my eyes, with the panic-stricken eyes, the ruffled hair, the lines of tears seaming the cheeks, seeming to look out at me from the crumple of the paper that I held.  I knew too, that there were faces like that everywhere; everywhere, faces of panic-stricken little people of no more account than the dead in graveyards, just the material to make graveyards, nothing more; little people of absolutely no use but just to suffer horribly from this blow coming upon them from nowhere.  It had never occurred to me at the time that their inheritance had passed to me ... to us.  And yet, I began to wonder stupidly, what was the difference between me to-day and me yesterday.  There wasn’t any, not any at all.  Only to-day I had nothing more to do.

The doors at the end of the room flew open, as if burst by a great outcry penetrating from without, and a man appeared running up the room—­one of those men who bear news eternally, who catch the distant clamour and carry it into quiet streets.  Why did he disturb me?  Did I want to hear his news?  I wanted to think of Churchill; to think of how to explain....  The man was running up the room.

“I say ...  I say, you beggars....”