e way his neck looked against his
collar; the shape of his mustache, the smell of his cigar, and his
handicap at golf.

It was impossible that Lily could be the mistress of a man like that.
Last night she had come out of the Orient with a girl. Obviously they
must at this moment be somewhere near Piccadilly. Michael rushed along
as wildly as a cat running after its tail. He entered restaurant after
restaurant, cafe after cafe, standing in the doorways and staring at the
tables one after another. The swinging doors would often hit him, as
people came in; the drinkers or the diners would often laugh at his
frown and his pale, eager gaze; often the manager would hurry up and ask
what he could do for him, evidently suspecting the irruption of a
lunatic.

Michael's behavior in the street was even more noticeable. He often
ricocheted from the inside to the outside of the pavement to get a
nearer view of a passing hansom whose occupant had faintly resembled
Lily. He mounted omnibuses going in all sorts of strange directions,
because he fancied for an instant that he had caught a glimpse of Lily
among the passengers. It was closing-time before he thought he had been
searching for five minutes; and when the lights were dimmed, he walked
up and down Regent Street, up and down Piccadilly, up and down Coventry
Street, hurrying time after time to pursue a walk that might have been
hers.

By one o'clock Piccadilly was nearly empty, and it was an insult to
suppose that Lily would be found among these furtive women with their
waylaying eyes in the gloom. Michael went back tired out to Cheyne Walk.
On the following night he visited the Orient again and afterward
searched every likely and unlikely place in the neighborhood of the
heart of pleasure. He went also to the Empire and to the Alhambra;
sometimes hurrying from one to the other twice in the evening, when
panics that he was missing Lily overtook him. He met Lonsdale one night
at the Empire, and Lonsdale took him to several night-clubs which gave a
great zest to Michael's search; for he became a member of them himself,
and so possessed every night another hour or more before he had to give
up hope of finding her.

Mrs. Fane wrote to him from Cannes to say she thought that, as she was
greatly enjoying herself on the Riviera, she would not come home for
Christmas. Michael was relieved by her letter, because he had felt
qualms about deserting her, and he would have found it diffi