ng her arms again about him and hugged him. Her heart
was beating furiously. Then without another word she left him.

IV

He could not go back to Harley Street yet. The sense of apprehension
that had been growing with him all day would give him a melancholy
evening, were he to spend it alone. He thought of Brun. Someone had told
him that the little man was in London.

He found him in his rooms, reading, with a cynical expression on his
face, a French review.

"I came to see--" said Christopher, "whether you happened to be free
to-night and would dine with me. I'm a pessimist for once this evening
and it doesn't suit me!"

Brun was very, very sorry, but he was dining with a Russian princess; it
was most tiresome that he should have to waste his time with a Russian
princess when he'd come over to London on this occasion expressly to
study the English people at this interesting crisis of their affairs,
but there it was--he'd no idea how he'd let himself in for it, and how
much rather would he spend the evening with his friend, Christopher.

Christopher said that he would smoke one cigarette and that then he must
go.

"And so you feel pessimistic?" said Brun, looking at Christopher
curiously--"It's the war, _Je crois bien_--How alike you all are!"

"No," said Christopher, "I don't think the war's much to do with it. I
dare say the war's a very good thing for all of us."

"Didn't I tell you--?" said Brun, greatly excited--then pulled himself
up--"No, it wasn't you. It was Arkwright. More than a year ago we were
in a picture gallery looking at your Duchess's picture, and coming home
we talked. I said then that something would come, that something _must_
come, and that then everything, _everything_ would crumple up. And
behold!" cried Brun, his eyes flashing--"See, it crumples!"

"That's a little previous of you," said Christopher. "Nothing crumpled
yet. We're disturbed of course----"

"It is most lucky," Brun said, "most lucky. Here we are, you and I,
ordinary people enough, with the end of a Period with its death and the
way it takes it, all for us to watch. _Most_ lucky...."

"End of Victorian Age ... _Voila!_" and with a little dramatic gesture
he waved his hand as though he were flinging the Age and its lumber
away, out of the window.

"You know, Christopher," he went on, "I've seen things coming over here
for so long. All you people, you couldn't have gone on very much longer
so remote from life. And no