ve sketches,
and by his mere manner of holding it between his thumb and finger he
sneered at it and condemned it.

He snapped out, not angrily--rather pityingly:

"And what the devil's this?"

George, furious, retorted:

"What the hell do you think it is?"

He had not foreseen that he was going to say such a thing. The traffic
in Regent Street, which had been inaudible to both of them, was loud in
their ears.

The examiner had committed a peccadillo, George a terrible crime. The
next morning the episode, in various forms, was somehow common knowledge
and a source of immense diversion. George went through the second day,
but lifelessly. He was sure he had failed. Apart from the significance
of the fact that the viva voce counted for 550 marks out of a total of
1200, he felt that the Royal Institute of British Architects would know
how to defend its dignity. On the Saturday morning John Orgreave had
positive secret information that George would be plucked.

IV

On that same Saturday afternoon George and Marguerite went out together.
She had given him a rendezvous in Brompton Cemetery, choosing this spot
partly because it was conveniently near and partly in unconscious
obedience to the traditional instinct of lovers for the society of the
undisturbing dead. Each of them had a roofed habitation, but neither
could employ it for the ends of love. No. 8 was barred to George as much
by his own dignity as by the invisible sword of the old man; and of
course he could not break the immemorial savage taboo of a club by
introducing a girl into it. The Duke of Wellington himself, though
Candle Court was his purdah, could never have broken the taboo of even
so modest a club as Pickering's. Owing to the absence of Agg, who had
gone to Wales with part of her family, the studio in Manresa Road was
equally closed to the pair.

Marguerite was first at the rendezvous. George saw her walking sedately
near the entrance. Despite her sedateness she had unmistakably the air
of waiting at a tryst. Anybody at a glance would have said that she was
expecting a man. She had the classical demure innocency of her
situation. George did not care for that. Why? She in fact was expecting
a man, and in expecting him she had nothing to be ashamed of. Well, he
did not care for it. He did not care for her being like other girls of
her class. In his pocket he had an invitation from Miss Wheeler for the
next evening. Would Miss Wheeler wait for a