had
novelettes interspersed among the books; a soiled petticoat of yellow
moirette lay over Michael's narrow bed, which he was surprised to see in
the sitting-room: a gas-stove had been fixed in the fireplace, and the
old steel grate had been turned into a deposit for dirty plates and
dishes: but what struck Michael most were the heavy curtains over the
folding-doors between the two rooms. He looked at Barnes, waiting for
him to explain the alterations.

"Looks a bit more homelike than it did, doesn't it?" said Barnes,
blinking round him.

A deterioration was visible even in Barnes himself. This was not merely
the result of being without a collar or a shave, Michael decided: it was
as hard to define as the evidence of death in a man's eyes; but there
clung to him an aura of corruption, and it seemed as if at a touch he
would dissolve into a vile deliquescence.

"You look pretty pasty," said Michael severely.

"Worry, old man, worry," said Barnes. "Well, to put it straight, I fell
in with a girl who was down on her luck, and I knew you'd be the very
one to encourage a bit of charity. So I brought her here."

"Why are you sleeping in this room?" Michael asked.

"You're getting a Mr. Smart, aren't you?" said Barnes. "Fancy you're
noticing that. Oh, well, I suppose you've come to ask for your rooms
back?"

Michael with the consciousness of the woman behind those curtained doors
knew that he could discuss nothing at present. He felt that all the time
her ear was at the keyhole, and he went out suddenly, telling Barnes to
meet him at the Orange that night.

Again the beerhall impressed him with its eternal sameness. It was as if
a cinema film had broken when he last went out of the Cafe d'Orange, and
had been set in action again at the moment of his return. He looked
round to see if Daisy was there, and she was. Her hat which had
formerly been black and trimmed with white daisies was now, to mark the
season, white and trimmed with black daisies.

"Hulloa!, little stranger!" she exclaimed. "Where have you been?"

So exactly the same was the Orange that Michael was almost surprised
that she should have observed a passage of time.

"You never seem to come here now," she said reproachfully. "Come on. Sit
down. Don't stand about like a man selling matches on the curb."

"How's Bert?" Michael asked.

"Who?"

"Bert Saunders. The man you were living with in Little Quondam Street."

"Oh, him! Oh, I had to get rid o