urse,' he laughed.
'The Prodigal Son. Which of us two is the Prodigal, Charley? 'Pon my
soul, I believe you are. You've been wandering all over the world, I
believe. I went to the funeral--you know.' I nodded. 'And the old chap
said you were in some frightful hole or other. Well, let me get in and
you can sit on the step. I'll take you up to my digs.'

"And that is what he did do, at a speed I could scarcely realize save by
the wind that roared past my ears. We dropped down Barnet Hill like a
bullet, we rushed through the gloaming with those blinding white beams
cleaving the quiet gloom ahead of us and throwing preternaturally sharp
shadows that reeled into oblivion like drunken goblins. It seemed to me,
after my quiet meditative stroll, a monstrous invasion. We would flash
round a curve with a whoop of the horn, and those pitiless rays would
suddenly reveal in stark loneliness a man and a girl, clasped in each
other's arms. Or they would loom up ahead, walking and lovemaking, and
the sound of the horn would strike them to attitudes of paralyzed fear.
Once we overtook a party in a trap, jogging pleasantly homeward, and we
left them holding for their lives and the horse rearing with terror. I
was holding on for my own dear life, for that matter. My brother lay
back in his seat and carried on a loud monologue directed at me. He said
he had to go to Southampton that night on urgent business, but must dine
first. Was going to motor. This was a Stromboli, hundred horse-power
racing machine. He was agent for Stromboli's. Had sold a lot of cars at
twelve hundred guineas each. Had been up in Scotland staying at a
country-house. And so on. I listened, but had nothing to say. He had no
interest in my affairs, and every word he said showed me we were nothing
and could be nothing to each other. And yet it had so happened that he
had been to our mother's funeral, he had played the proper part while I
was away on the ocean, a wanderer and a prodigal. He even had, as I saw
later, a band of crape on his arm, which somehow I had forgotten to
wear. He made me feel insignificant and hopelessly inferior. And
suddenly, as I clung there, another thought sprang up in my mind, the
possibility that I might even now be on the way to a meeting with Gladys
again. Not that I had any rational reason to dread such a meeting.
Indeed, it was she who had left me and gone to him. But I did dread it
all the same. I knew it would find me tongue-tied and foo