e sea of traffic with scarcely a sense of movement.

"Life," he said, "is full of new sensations," holding her fingers a
little tighter.

"It is our extreme youth," she murmured, gently but firmly withdrawing
them. "In a year's time all this will seem crude to you."

"In a year's time," he answered, looking down at her, suddenly
thoughtful, "I will remind you of that speech."

She sighed, but her gravity was only for a moment. She was chattering
again gaily by the time they reached the street where Douglas's rooms
were. He led her up the stairs, ill-carpeted and narrow. His room had
never seemed so small and shabby as when at last they reached it and he
threw the door open.

She walked at once to the window. The Houses of Parliament,
Westminster, the Thames, were all visible. A hundred lights flashed
upon the embankments and across the bridges, away opposite, a revolving
series of illuminations proclaimed the surpassing quality of a
well-known whiskey. Westwards, a glow of fire hung over the city from
Leicester Square and the theatres. She gazed at it all, fascinated.

"What a wonderful view, Douglas!" she exclaimed. He rose up, hot from
his struggles with a refractory lamp, and came to her side. A sound of
bubbling and a pleasant smell of coffee proclaimed the result of his
labours.

"I have never yet tired of looking at it," he answered. "I have no
blind, as you see, and at night I have had my writing-table here and the
window open. Listen."

He threw up the sash. A deep, monotonous roar, almost like the incoming
tide of the sea, fell upon their ears.

"You hear it," he said. "That is life, that rolling of wheels, the
falling of a thousand footsteps upon the pavement, men and women going
to their pleasures, the outcasts and the parasites bearing them company.
It is like the sea. It is always there. It is the everbeating pulse of
humanity."

He closed the window and led her to an easy chair.

"Cissy," he said, "do you know, this is what we always talked of, that I
should write a story and read it first to you? Do you remember?"

"Yes," she answered softly, "I remember."

"We didn't anticipate this." He looked around. "Don't judge me
altogether by my surroundings. To tell you the truth, when I started I
went too much to the other extreme. I discovered I had made a mistake,
so I sold up and found myself in debt. I am earning plenty of money,
but I have to economise to get clear. This novel is going to set