The cab turned into the Strand, which greeted me as affably as a pandemonium.  Motor omnibuses whizzed at me, cabs rattled and jeered at me, private motors and carriages passed me by in sleek contempt; policemen regarded me scornfully as, with uplifted hand regulating the traffic, they held me up; pavements full of people surged along ostentatiously showing that they did not care a brass farthing for me; the thousands of lights with their million reflections, from shop fronts, restaurants, theatres, and illuminated signs glared pitilessly at me.  A harsh roar of derision filled the air, like the bass to the treble of the newsboys who yelled in my face.  I was wearing a fur-lined coat—­just the thing a penniless adventurer would wear.  I had a valet attending to my luggage—­just the sort of thing a penniless adventurer would have.  I was driving to the Albany—­just the sort of place where a penniless adventurer would live.  And London knew all this—­and scoffed at me in stony heartlessness.  The only object that gave me the slightest sympathy was Nelson on top of his column.  He seemed to say, “After all, you can’t feel such a fool and so much out in the cold as I do up here.”

At Piccadilly Circus I found the same atmosphere of hostility.  My cab was blocked in the theatre-going tide, and in neighbouring vehicles I had glimpses of fair faces above soft wraps and the profiles of moustached young men in white ties.  They assumed an aggravating air of ownership of the blazing thoroughfare, the only gay and joyous spot in London.  I, too, had owned it once, but now I felt an alien; and the whole spirit of Piccadilly Circus rammed the sentiment home—­I was an alien and an undesirable alien.  I felt even more lost and friendless as I entered the long, cold arcade (known as the Ropewalk) of the Albany.

I found my sister Agatha waiting for me in the library.  I had telegraphed to her from Southampton.  She was expensively dressed in grey silk, and wore the family diamonds.  We exchanged the family kiss and the usual incoherent greetings of our race.  She expressed her delight at my restoration to health and gave me satisfactory tidings of Tom Durrell, her husband, of the children, and of our sister Jane.  Then she shook her head at me, and made me feel like a naughty little boy.  This I resented.  Being the head of the family, I had always encouraged the deferential attitude which my sisters, dear right-minded things, had naturally assumed from babyhood.

“Oh, Simon, what a time you’ve given us!”

She had never spoken to me like this in her life.

“That’s nothing, my dear Agatha,” said I just a bit tartly, “to the time I’ve given myself.  I’m sorry for you, but I think you ought to be a little sorry for me.”

“I am.  More sorry than I can say.  Oh, Simon, how could you?”

“How could I what?” I cried, unwontedly regardless of the refinements of language.

“Mix yourself up in this dreadful affair?”