‘You’d better not talk like that to Sibyl.’

’Why, frankly, old man, I think that’s your mistake.  But you’ll tell me, and rightly enough, to mind my own business.’

‘Nonsense.  What do you mean exactly?  You think I ought to —­’

Hugh hesitated, with an air of uneasiness.

‘Well,’ pursued his friend cautiously, ’do you think it’s right to suppress your natural instincts?  Mightn’t it give her a new interest in life if she came round a little to your point of view?’

‘Queer thing, how unlike we are, isn’t it?’ said Carnaby, with a sudden drop of his tone to amiable ingenuousness.  ’But, you know; we get along together very well.’

’To be sure.  Yet you are going to rust in the Riviera when you want to be on the Himalayas.  Wouldn’t it do your wife good to give up her books and her music for a while and taste fresh air?’

‘I doubt if she’s strong enough for it.’

’It would make her stronger.  And here’s a good opportunity.  If you give up housekeeping (and housekeepers), why not reform your life altogether?  Go and have a look at Australia.’

‘Sibyl hates the sea.’

‘She’d soon get over that.  Seriously, you ought to think of it.’

Carnaby set his lips and for a moment hung his head.

‘You’re quite right.  But —­’

‘A little pluck, old fellow.’

‘I’ll see what can be done.  Have another whisky?’

They went out into the hall, where a dim light through coloured glass illumined a statue in terracotta, some huge engravings, the massive antlers of an elk, and furniture in carved oak.

‘Queer feeling of emptiness,’ said Carnaby, subduing his voice.  ’I feel as if they’d carried off everything, and left bare walls.  Sibyl couldn’t stay in the place.  Shall I whistle for a cab?  By Jove! that reminds me, the whistle has gone; it happened to be silver.  A wedding present from that fool Benson, who broke his neck in a steeplechase three weeks after.’  Harvey laughed, and stepped out into the watery fog.

CHAPTER 3

A cab crawling at the upper end of the terrace took him quickly home.  He entered with his latch-key as a church clock tolled one.

It was a large house, within a few minutes’ walk of Royal Oak Station.  Having struck a match, and lit a candle which stood upon the hall table (indicating that he was the last who would enter tonight), Harvey put up the door-chain and turned the great key, then went quietly upstairs.  His rooms were on the first floor.  A tenancy of five years, with long absences, enabled him to regard this niche in a characterless suburb as in some sort his home; a familiar smell of books and tobacco welcomed him as he opened the door; remnants of a good fire kept the air warm, and dispersed a pleasant glow.  On shelves which almost concealed the walls, stood a respectable collection