Another carriage drove up and stopped at the next house.  Christopher remembered that he must discover the address, an easy matter enough.  He found that the square was called Stanhope Gardens; he noted the number of the house with flowers.  Then, weary, disgusted, he started on his eastward walk.  Omnibuses, of course, there were none.  The chance of a train at some underground station seemed too doubtful to think about; in any case he had no more money to waste.

On he plodded, heavily, angrily—­Cromwell Road, Brompton Road, at last Piccadilly, and so into familiar districts, though he had never walked here so late at night.  Of course there would be nasty questions to-morrow; Theodore would look grave, and Ada would be virtuously sour, and his mother—­but perhaps they would not worry her by disclosing such things.  Unaccustomed to express himself with violence, Christopher at about half-past twelve found some relief in a timid phrase or two of swearing.

When he reached Shaftesbury Avenue he was dog-tired.  The streets had now become very quiet; he felt a doubt as to the possibility of knocking at a house door.  But Polly had said he was to do so, be the hour what it might.  The front of the house was dark, not a glimmer in any windows.  Doubtfully he drew near and knocked thrice.

Minutes passed, nearly five, in fact, then he knocked again.  He would wait five minutes more, and then—­

But the door softly opened.

“That you?” said Polly’s voice.

“Yes, it is.”

She opened the door wide, and he saw by the light from the street that she was dressed as usual.

“How late you are!  Well?  Can’t you speak?”

“I’m dead beat, that’s the truth,” he replied, leaning against the door-post.  “Walked back all the way from South Kensington.”

“Oh, it was there, was it?” said Polly, without heed to his complaint.  “What’s the address?”

“I tell you what, Polly,” broke from Christopher’s dry lips, “I think you might show a bit more feeling for a fellow when he’s walked himself to death—­”

“You might have took a cab just for this once.”

“A cab!  Why, the other one cost me half a sovereign!”

“Half a sovereign!” echoed Polly in amazement.  “To South Kensington!”

It did not occur to Mr. Parish that such a detail might be left unmentioned.  In these little matters there is a difference between class and class.  Polly was not, of course, surprised at his letting her know what the mission had cost him, but the sum made her indignant.

“Well, he had you, that cabby!”

Christopher related the circumstances, still leaning in exhaustion against the door-post, and Miss Sparkes, who under no conceivable stress could have suffered herself to be so “done out of” a piece of gold, scarcely knew whether to despise or to pity him.  After all, a compassionate feeling prevailed, sure sign that there was something disinterested in her association with this young man.