sewood cabinet and took
from a drawer his cheque-book and pass-book. He totted them up, and his
monk-like face grew thoughtful. His installation had cost him more than
he had intended it should, and his balance was rather less than fifty
pounds, with no immediate prospect of more.

"Hm! I'd forgotten rugs and chintz curtains and so forth mounted up so,"
said Oleron. "But it would have been a pity to spoil the place for the
want of ten pounds or so.... Well, _Romilly_ simply _must_ be out for the
autumn, that's all. So here goes--"

He drew his papers towards him.

But he worked badly; or, rather, he did not work at all. The square
outside had its own noises, frequent and new, and Oleron could only hope
that he would speedily become accustomed to these. First came hawkers,
with their carts and cries; at midday the children, returning from
school, trooped into the square and swung on Oleron's gate; and when the
children had departed again for afternoon school, an itinerant musician
with a mandolin posted himself beneath Oleron's window and began to
strum. This was a not unpleasant distraction, and Oleron, pushing up his
window, threw the man a penny. Then he returned to his table again....

But it was no good. He came to himself, at long intervals, to find that
he had been looking about his room and wondering how it had formerly
been furnished--whether a settee in buttercup or petunia satin had stood
under the farther window, whether from the centre moulding of the light
lofty ceiling had depended a glimmering crystal chandelier, or where the
tambour-frame or the picquet-table had stood.... No, it was no good; he
had far better be frankly doing nothing than getting fruitlessly tired;
and he decided that he would take a walk, but, chancing to sit down for a
moment, dozed in his chair instead.

"This won't do," he yawned when he awoke at half-past four in the
afternoon; "I must do better than this to-morrow--"

And he felt so deliciously lazy that for some minutes he even
contemplated the breach of an appointment he had for the evening.

The next morning he sat down to work without even permitting himself to
answer one of his three letters--two of them tradesmen's accounts, the
third a note from Miss Bengough, forwarded from his old address. It was a
jolly day of white and blue, with a gay noisy wind and a subtle turn in
the colour of growing things; and over and over again, once or twice a
minute, his room became su