But Summerhay still stood, not taking in at all the reflected image of his frowning, rueful face, and of the cigar extinct between his lips.  Then he shook his head vigorously and walked on.  He walked faster, his mind blank, as it is sometimes for a short space after a piece of sell-revelation that has come too soon for adjustment or even quite for understanding.  And when he began to think, it was irritably and at random.  He had come to Bury Street, and, while he passed up it, felt a queer, weak sensation down the back of his legs.  No flower-boxes this year broke the plain front of Winton’s house, and nothing whatever but its number and the quickened beating of his heart marked it out for Summerhay from any other dwelling.  The moment he turned into Jermyn Street, that beating of the heart subsided, and he felt suddenly morose.  He entered his club at the top of St. James’ Street and passed at once into the least used room.  This was the library; and going to the French section, he took down “The Three Musketeers” and seated himself in a window, with his back to anyone who might come in.  He had taken this—­his favourite romance, feeling in want of warmth and companionship; but he did not read.  From where he sat he could throw a stone to where she was sitting perhaps; except for walls he could almost reach her with his voice, could certainly see her.  This was imbecile!  A woman he had only met twice.  Imbecile!  He opened the book—­

     “Oh, no; it is an ever-fixed mark
       That looks on tempests and is never shaken. 
     It is the star to every wandering bark,
       Whose worth’s unknown altho’ its height be taken.”

“Point of five!  Three queens—­three knaves!  Do you know that thing of Dowson’s:  ‘I have been faithful to thee, Cynara, in my fashion’?  Better than any Verlaine, except ‘Les sanglots longs.’  What have you got?”

“Only quart to the queen.  Do you like the name ’Cynara’?”

“Yes; don’t you?”

“Cynara!  Cynara!  Ye-es—­an autumn, rose-petal, whirling, dead-leaf sound.”

“Good!  Pipped.  Shut up, Ossy—­don’t snore!”

“Ah, poor old dog!  Let him.  Shuffle for me, please.  Oh! there goes another card!” Her knee was touching his—! . . .

The book had dropped—­Summerhay started.

Dash it!  Hopeless!  And, turning round in that huge armchair, he snoozed down into its depths.  In a few minutes, he was asleep.  He slept without a dream.

It was two hours later when the same friend, seeking distraction, came on him, and stood grinning down at that curly head and face which just then had the sleepy abandonment of a small boy’s.  Maliciously he gave the chair a little kick.

Summerhay stirred, and thought:  ‘What!  Where am I?’

In front of the grinning face, above him, floated another, filmy, charming.  He shook himself, and sat up.  “Oh, damn you!”