He went into a room fifteen feet square and perhaps ten high, with a sulky canary in a small gilt cage, an upright piano with an open operatic score, a sofa with piled-up cushions, and on it a woman with a flushed and sullen face, whose elbows were resting on her knees, whose chin was resting on her hand, whose gaze was fixed on nothing.  It was a room of that size, with all these things, but Gregory took into it with him some thing that made it all seem different to Gregory.  He sat down by the window with his eyes care fully averted, and spoke in soft tones broken by something that sounded like emotion.  He began by telling her of his woman with the morphia habit, and then he told her that he knew every thing.  When he had said this he looked out of the window, where builders had left by inadvertence a narrow strip of sky.  And thus he avoided seeing the look on her face, contemptuous, impatient, as though she were thinking:  ’You are a good fellow, Gregory, but for Heaven’s sake do see things for once as they are!  I have had enough of it.’  And he avoided seeing her stretch her arms out and spread the fingers, as an angry cat will stretch and spread its toes.  He told her that he did not want to worry her, but that when she wanted him for anything she must send for him—­he was always there; and he looked at her feet, so that he did not see her lip curl.  He told her that she would always be the same to him, and he asked her to believe that.  He did not see the smile which never left her lips again while he was there—­the smile he could not read, because it was the smile of life, and of a woman that he did not understand.  But he did see on that sofa a beautiful creature for whom he had longed for years, and so he went away, and left her standing at the door with her teeth fastened on her lip:  And since with him Gregory took his eyes, he did not see her reseated on the sofa, just as she had been before he came in, her elbows on her knees, her chin in her hand, her moody eyes like those of a gambler staring into the distance....

In the streets of tall houses leading away from Chelsea were many men, some, like Gregory, hungry for love, and some hungry for bread—­men in twos and threes, in crowds, or by themselves, some with their eyes on the ground, some with their eyes level, some with their eyes on the sky, but all with courage and loyalty of one poor kind or another in their hearts.  For by courage and loyalty alone it is written that man shall live, whether he goes to Chelsea or whether he comes away.  Of all these men, not one but would have smiled to hear Gregory saying to himself:  “She will always be the same to me!  She will always be the same to me!” And not one that would have grinned....