As he traversed the streets he allowed himself no thought, Once, as he waited in Trafalgar Square to find a passage between the vehicles, the remembrance of Chilcote’s voice coming out of the fog on their first night made itself prominent, but he rejected it quickly, guarding himself from even an involuntary glance at the place of their meeting.  The Strand, with its unceasing life, came to him as something almost unfamiliar.  Since his identification with the new life no business had drawn him east of Charing Cross, and his first sight of the narrower stream of traffic struck him as garish and unpleasant.  As the impression came he accelerated his steps, moved by the wish to make regret and retrospection alike impossible by a contact with actual forces.

Still walking hastily, he entered Clifford’s Inn, but there almost unconsciously his feet halted.  There was something in the quiet immutability of the place that sobered energy, both mental and physical.  A sense of changelessness—­the changelessness of inanimate things, that rises in such solemn contrast to the variableness of mere human nature, which a new environment, a new outlook, sometimes even a new presence, has power to upheave and remould.  He paused; then with slower and steadier steps crossed the little court and mounted the familiar stairs of his own house.

As he turned the handle of his own door some one stirred inside the sitting-room.  Still under the influence of the stones and trees that he had just left, he moved directly towards the sound, and, without waiting for permission, entered the room.  After the darkness of the passage it seemed well alight, for, besides the lamp with its green shade, a large fire burned in the grate and helped to dispel the shadows.

As he entered the room Chilcote rose and came forward, his figure thrown into strong relief by the double light.  He was dressed in a shabby tweed suit; his face looked pale and set with a slightly nervous tension, but besides the look and a certain added restlessness of glance there was no visible change.  Reaching Loder, he held out his hand.

“Well?” he said, quickly.

The other looked at him questioningly.

“Well?  Well?  How has it gone?”

“The scheme?  Oh, excellently!” Loder’s manner was abrupt.  Turning from the restless curiosity in Chilcote’s eyes, he moved a little way across the room and began to draw off his coat.  Then, as if struck by the incivility of the action, he looked back again.  “The scheme has gone extraordinarily,” he said.  “I could almost say absurdly.  There are some things, Chilcote, that fairly bowl a man over.”

A great relief tinged Chilcote’s face.  “Good!” he exclaimed. 
“Tell me all about it.”

But Loder was reticent.  The moment was not propitious.  It was as if a hungry man had dreamed a great banquet and had awakened to his starvation.  He was chary of imparting his visions.