Richmond and play golf.

For on Saturdays Stephen almost always left the precincts of the Courts
before three o'clock. Then, if he could induce his wife or daughter to
accompany him, he liked to get a round or two in preparation for Sunday,
when he always started off at half-past ten and played all day. If
Cecilia and Thyme failed him, he would go to his club, and keep himself
in touch with every kind of social movement by reading the reviews.

Thyme walked along with her head up and a wrinkle in her brow, as though
she were absorbed in serious reflection; if admiring glances were flung
at her, she did not seem aware of them. Passing not far from Hilary's,
she entered the Broad Walk, and crossed it to the farther end.

On a railing, stretching out his long legs and observing the passers-by,
sat her cousin, Martin Stone. He got down as she came up.

"Late again," he said. "Come on!"

"Where are we going first?" Thyme asked.

"The Notting Hill district's all we can do to-day if we're to go again to
Mrs. Hughs'. I must be down at the hospital this afternoon."

Thyme frowned. "I do envy you living by yourself, Martin. It's silly
having to live at home."

Martin did not answer, but one nostril of his long nose was seen to
curve, and Thyme acquiesced in this without remark. They walked for some
minutes between tall houses, looking about them calmly. Then Martin
said: "All Purceys round here."

Thyme nodded. Again there was silence; but in these pauses there was no
embarrassment, no consciousness apparently that it was silence, and their
eyes--those young, impatient, interested eyes--were for ever busy
observing.

"Boundary line. We shall be in a patch directly."

"Black?" asked Thyme.

"Dark blue--black farther on."

They were passing down a long, grey, curving road, whose narrow houses,
hopelessly unpainted, showed marks of grinding poverty. The Spring wind
was ruffling straw and little bits of paper in the gutters; under the
bright sunlight a bleak and bitter struggle seemed raging. Thyme said:

"This street gives me a hollow feeling."

Martin nodded. "Worse than the real article. There's half a mile of
this. Here it's all grim fighting. Farther on they've given it up."

And still they went on up the curving street, with its few pinched shops
and its unending narrow grimness.

At the corner of a by-street Martin said: "We'll go down here."

Thyme stood still, wrinkling her nose. Mar