s room was a new experience to Jenny.

"What a shocking untidy place!" she exclaimed. "What! It's like Madge
Wilson's mother's second-hand shop in the New Kent Road. You don't
_live_ here?"

"Yes, I do," said Maurice.

"Sleep here?"

"No; I sleep underneath. I've a bedroom with Castleton."

"Untidy, like this is?"

"No, rather tidy. Bath-tub, Sandow exerciser, and photographs of my
sisters by Ellis and Walery. Quite English and respectable."

Jenny went on:

"Doesn't all this mess ever get on your nerves? Don't you ever go mad to
clear it up?"

"You shall be mistress here and clear up when you like."

"All right, Artist Bill. I suppose you are an artist?"

"I don't know what I am. I'd like best to be a sculptor. You must sit
for me."

"The only artist I ever sat for I took off my belt to in the finish."

"Why?"

"He annoyed me. Go on. What else are you?"

"I'd like to be a musician."

"You've got a jolly fine piano, any way," said Jenny, sitting down to a
Bechstein grand to pick out some of Miss Victoria Monk's songs with the
right hand while she held a cigarette in the left.

"Then I write a bit," said Maurice. "Criticisms, you know. I told you I
wrote a notice of your ballet. I'm twenty-four and I shall come into a
certain amount of money, and my people live in a large house in Surrey
and oh, I--well--I'm a _dilettante_. Now you know my history."

"Whatever on earth's a dilly--you do use the most unnatural words. I
shall call you Dictionary Dick."

"Look here, let's chuck explanations," said Maurice. "I simply must kiss
you. Let's go and look out at the river."

He pulled her towards the window and flung it wide open. Together they
leaned out, smoking. The sparrows were silent now. They could hear the
splash and gurgle of the water against the piers, and the wind shaking
the plane tree bare along the embankment. They watched the lamp-lighter
go past on his twinkling pilgrimage. They listened to the thunder of
London streets a long way off. Their cigarettes were finished. Together
they dropped to extinction in a shower of orange sparks below.

Maurice drew Jenny back into the darkening room.

"Look! The windows are like big sapphires," he said, and caught her to
his arms. They stood enraptured in the dusk and shadows of the old
house. Round them Attic shapes glimmered: the gods of Greece regarded
them: Aphrodite laughed.

"Don't all these statues frighten you?" said Jenny.

"No, they're