"Jealous?" enquired Meats. "Why, look at all the girls round about you.
It's up to you not to feel lonely."

"I know," said Michael fretfully. "But how the deuce can I tell whether
they want me to talk to them?"

Meats laughed shrilly.

"What are you afraid of? Leading some innocent lamb astray?"

Again to Michael occurred the ridiculous rhyme of Bo-peep. So insistent
was it that he could scarcely refrain from humming it aloud.

"Of course I'm not afraid of that," he protested. "But how am I to tell
they won't think me a brute?"

"What would it matter if they did?" asked Meats.

"Well, I should feel a fool."

"Oh, dear. You're very young, aren't you?"

"It's nothing to do with being young," Michael asserted. "I simply don't
want to be a cad."

"Somebody else is to be the cad first and then it's all right, eh?"
chuckled Meats. "But it's a shame to teaze a nice chap like you. I dare
say Daisy'll have a friend with her."

"Is Daisy the girl you're going to see?"

"You've guessed my secret," said Meats. "Come on, I'll introduce you."

As Michael rose to follow Meats, he felt that he was like Faust with
Mephistopheles. But Faust had asked for his youth back again. Michael
only demanded the courage not to waste youth while it was his to enjoy.
He felt that his situation was essentially different from the other, and
he hesitated no longer.

The next half-hour passed in a whirl. Michael was conscious of a slim
brunette in black and scarlet, and of a fairy-like figure by her side in
a dress of shimmering blue; he was conscious too of a voice
insinuating, softly metallic, and of fingers that touched his wrist as
lightly as silk. There were whispers and laughters and sudden sweeping
embarrassments. There was a horrible sense of publicity, of curious
mocking eyes that watched his progress. There was an overwhelming
knowledge of money burning in his pocket, of money hard and round and
powerful. There were hot waves of remorse and the thought of his heart
hammering him on to be brave. A cabman leaned over from his box like a
gargoyle. A key clicked.

Then, it seemed a century afterwards, Carlington Road stretched dim,
austere, forbidding to Michael's ingress. A policeman's deep salutation
sounded portentously reproachful. The bloom of dawn was on the windows.
The flames in the street-lamps were pale as primroses. At his own house
Michael saw the red and amber sparrows in their crude blue vegetation
horribly garish