ave way to one of sharp scrutiny. When he came ashore
from his cock-boat he would go to a hotel in a street like a scene from
the _Tales of Hoffmann_, and he would sleep in a great bed in a mighty
room where papal legates had snored in preceding centuries, and the
rulers of commanderies had dictated letters to the grand masters of
their order. But even there, in that seclusion and fine repository of
faith and peace, he dared not recall that last adventure at Bairakli,
that catastrophe of his soul. Even the banjo of the occupant of the next
room, a nice-looking boy with many medals and a staff appointment, did
not mean much to him. He listened apathetically to the nice young voice
singing a Kipling ballad:

"_Funny an' yellow an' faithful--
Doll in a tea-cup she were,
But we lived on the square, like a true-married pair,
An' I learned about women from 'er!_"

But the nice boy had never lived and never would live with anybody on
such terms, and his clear young voice lacked the plangent irony of the
battered idealist. It was perfectly obvious that he was entirely
ignorant of the formidable distortion of character which living with
people brought about. He evidently imagined marriage was a good joke and
living with girls a bad joke. Mr. Spokesly would lie on his huge bed and
try to get his bearings while his neighbour gave his version of "Keep
the Home Fires Burning" and "I'd Wait Till the End of the World for
You." He was visible sometimes, on his balcony overlooking the steep Via
Sant' Lucia raising his eyes with a charming and entirely idiotic
diffidence to other balconies where leaned dark-browed damsels, and
dreaming the bright and honourable dreams of the well-brought-up young
Englishman. Mr. Spokesly got no assistance from such as he. Even in his
most fatuous moments he had known that for them the war was only an
unusually gigantic and bloody football match, for which they claimed the
right to establish the rules. When it was over we would all go back to
our places in the world and touch our hats to them, the landed gentry of
mankind.

Sitting on his park-seat, under the shadow of Victoria's triumphal arch,
Mr. Spokesly saw this would not be the case. Behind his own particular
problem, which was to regain, somehow or other, the taste of life, he
saw something else looming. How were these very charming and delightful
beings, the survivors of an age of gentles and simples, of squires and
serfs,