Nothing is so like a woman as a pigeon; perhaps that’s the reason Norton does not like them.  Norton!  I haven’t seen him for ages—­since that morning....”  He turned into Pump Court.  The doors were wide open; and there was luggage and some packing-cases on the landing.  The floor-matting was rolled, and the screen which protected from draughts the high canonical chair in which Norton read and wrote was overthrown.  John was packing his portmanteau, and on either side of him there was a Buddha and Indian warrior which he had lately purchased.

“What, leaving?  Giving up your rooms?”

“Yes; I’m going down to Sussex.  I do not think it is worth while keeping these rooms on.”

Mike expressed his regret.  Mike said, “No one understands you as I do.”  Herein lay the strength of Mike’s nature; he won himself through all reserve, and soon John was telling him his state of soul:  that he felt it would not be right for him to countenance with his presence any longer the atheism and immorality of the Temple.  Lady Helen’s death had come for a warning.  “After the burning of my poems, after having sacrificed so much, it was indeed a pitiful thing to find myself one of that shocking revel which had culminated in the death of that woman.”

“There he goes again,” thought Mike, “running after his conscience like a dog after his tail—­a performing dog, too; one that likes an audience.”  And to stimulate the mental antics in which he was so much interested, he said, “Do you believe she is in hell?”

“I refrain from judging her.  She may have repented in the moment of death.  God is her judge.  But I shall never forget that morning; and I feel that my presence at your party imposes on me some measure of responsibility.  As for you, Mike, I really think you ought to consider her fate as an omen.  It was you ...”

“For goodness’ sake, don’t.  It was Frank who invented the notion that she killed herself because I had been flirting with her.  I never heard of anything so ridiculous.  I protest.  You know the absurdly sentimental view he takes.  It is grossly unfair.”

Knowing well how to interest John, Mike defended himself passionately, as if he were really concerned to place his soul in a true light; and twenty minutes were agreeably spent in sampling, classifying, and judging of motives.  Then the conversation turned on the morality of women, and Mike judiciously selected some instances from his stock of experiences whereby John might judge of their animalism.  Like us all, John loved to talk sensuality; but it was imperative that the discussion should be carried forward with gravity and reserve.  Seated in his high canonical chair, wrapped in his dressing-gown, John would bend forward listening, as if from the Bench or the pulpit, awaking to a more intense interest when some more than usually bitter vial of satire was emptied upon the fair sex.  He had once amused Harding very much by his admonishment of a Palais Royal farce.