dn't stand the fellow--hated him, Madley, in fact. (Aha!
That was a joke!). He seriously doubted whether the man had led the life
he ought; Oleron was in two minds sometimes whether he wouldn't tell that
long-nosed guardian of the public morals across the way about him; but
probably he knew, and had made his praying hullabaloos for him also.
That was his line. Why, Oleron himself had had a dust-up with him about
something or other ... some girl or other ... Elsie Bengough her name
was, he remembered....

Oleron had moments of deep uneasiness about this Elsie Bengough. Or
rather, he was not so much uneasy about her as restless about the things
she did. Chief of these was the way in which she persisted in thrusting
herself into his thoughts; and, whenever he was quick enough, he sent her
packing the moment she made her appearance there. The truth was that she
was not merely a bore; she had always been that; it had now come to the
pitch when her very presence in his fancy was inimical to the full
enjoyment of certain experiences.... She had no tact; really ought to
have known that people are not at home to the thoughts of everybody all
the time; ought in mere politeness to have allowed him certain seasons
quite to himself; and was monstrously ignorant of things if she did not
know, as she appeared not to know, that there were certain special hours
when a man's veins ran with fire and daring and power, in which ... well,
in which he had a reasonable right to treat folk as he had treated that
prying Barrett--to shut them out completely.... But no: up she popped,
the thought of her, and ruined all. Bright towering fabrics, by the side
of which even those perfect, magical novels of which he dreamed were dun
and grey, vanished utterly at her intrusion. It was as if a fog should
suddenly quench some fair-beaming star, as if at the threshold of some
golden portal prepared for Oleron a pit should suddenly gape, as if a
bat-like shadow should turn the growing dawn to mirk and darkness
again.... Therefore, Oleron strove to stifle even the nascent thought
of her.

Nevertheless, there came an occasion on which this woman Bengough
absolutely refused to be suppressed. Oleron could not have told exactly
when this happened; he only knew by the glimmer of the street lamp on his
blind that it was some time during the night, and that for some time she
had not presented herself.

He had no warning, none, of her coming; she just came--was th