ed out into the
night.

In that darkness were all the shapes and lights and shadows of a London
night in spring: the trees in dark bloom; the wan yellow of the
gas-lamps, pale emblems of the self-consciousness of towns; the clustered
shades of the tiny leaves, spilled, purple, on the surface of the road,
like bunches of black grapes squeezed down into the earth by the feet of
the passers-by. There, too, were shapes of men and women hurrying home,
and the great blocked shapes of the houses where they lived. A halo
hovered above the City--a high haze of yellow light, dimming the stars.
The black, slow figure of a policeman moved noiselessly along the
railings opposite.

From then till eleven o'clock, when he would make himself some cocoa on a
little spirit-lamp, the writer of the "Book of Universal Brotherhood"
would alternate between his bent posture above his manuscript and his
blank consideration of the night....

With a jerk, Hilary came back to his reflections beneath the bust of
Socrates.

"Each of us has a shadow in those places--in those streets!"

There certainly was a virus in that notion. One must either take it as a
jest, like Stephen; or, what must one do? How far was it one's business
to identify oneself with other people, especially the helpless--how far
to preserve oneself intact--'integer vita'? Hilary was no young person,
like his niece or Martin, to whom everything seemed simple; nor was he an
old person like their grandfather, for whom life had lost its
complications.

And, very conscious of his natural disabilities for a decision on a like,
or indeed on any, subject except, perhaps, a point of literary technique,
he got up from his writing-table, and, taking his little bulldog, went
out. His intention was to visit Mrs. Hughs in Hound Street, and see with
his own eyes the state of things. But he had another reason, too, for
wishing to go there ....

CHAPTER IV

THE LITTLE MODEL

When in the preceding autumn Bianca began her picture called "The
Shadow," nobody was more surprised than Hilary that she asked him to find
her a model for the figure. Not knowing the nature of the picture, nor
having been for many years--perhaps never--admitted into the workings of
his wife's spirit, he said:

"Why don't you ask Thyme to sit for you?"

Blanca answered: "She's not the type at all--too matter-of-fact. Besides,
I don't want a lady; the figure's to be half draped."

Hilary smiled.