Dear Emily, who said she suffered from loneliness and fear of the future as acutely as he, was anxious to force the matter forward.  But her eagerness begot reluctance in Mike, and at the end of a week, he felt that he would sooner take his razor and slice his head off, than live under the same roof with her.

In Regent Street one evening he met Frank Escott.  After a few preliminary observations Mike asked him if he had heard lately from Lord Mount Rorke.  Frank said that he had not seen him.  All was over between them, but his uncle had, however, arranged to allow him two hundred a year.  He was living at Mortlake, “a nice little house; our neighbour on the left is a city clerk at a salary of seventy pounds a year, on the right is a chemist’s shop; a very nice woman is the chemist’s wife; my wife and the chemist’s wife are fast friends.  We go over and have tea with them, and they come and have tea with us.  The chemist and I smoke our pipes over the garden wall.  All this appears very dreadful to you, but I assure you I have more real pleasure, and take more interest in my life, than ever I did before.  My only trouble is the insurance policy—­I must keep that paid up, for the two hundred a year’s only an annuity.  It makes a dreadful hole in our income.  You might come down and see us.”

“And be introduced to the chemist’s wife!”

“There’s no use in trying to come it over me; I know who you are.  I have seen you many times about the roads in a tattered jacket.  You mustn’t think that because all the good luck went your way, and all the bad luck my way, that I’m any less a gentleman, or you any less a ——­”

“My dear Frank, I’m really very sorry for what I said; I forgot.  I assure you I didn’t mean to sneer.  I give you my word of honour.”

They walked around Piccadilly Circus, edging their way through the women, that the sultry night had brought out in white dresses.  It was a midnight of white dresses and fine dust; the street was as clean as a ball-room; like a pure dream the moon soared through the azure infinities, whitening the roadway; the cabmen loitered, following those who showed disposition to pair; groups gathered round the lamp-posts, and were dispersed by stalwart policemen.  “Move on, move on, if you please, gentlemen!”

Frank told Mike about the children.  He had now a boy five years old, “such a handsome fellow, and he can read as well as you or I can.  He’s down at the sea-side now with his mother.  He wrote me such a clever letter, telling me he had just finished Robinson Crusoe, and was going to make a start on Gulliver’s Travels.  I’m crazy about my boy.  Talk of being tired of living, my trouble is that I shall have to leave him one day.”

Mike thought Frank’s love of his son charming, and he regretted he could find in his own heart no such simple sentiments!  Every now and then he turned to look after a girl, and pulling his moustache, muttered—­