m do not satisfy me, so life sometimes becomes a
little difficult."

"Have you friends in London?" he asked.

"None! I tried living there when I first came back for a few weeks, but
it was impossible."

"You will be very lonely, surely. London is the loneliest of all great
cities."

"Why should I not make friends?"

"That is what I too asked myself years ago when I was articled there,"
he answered. "Yet it is not so easy as it sounds. Every one seems to
have their own little circle, and a solitary person remains so often
just outside. Yet if you have friends--and tastes--London is a
paradise. Oh, how fascinating I used to find it just at first--before
the chill came. You, too, will feel that. You will be content at first
to watch, to listen, to wonder! Every type of humanity passes before
you like the jumbled-up figures of a kaleidoscope. You are content even
to sit before a window in a back street--and listen. What a sound that
is--the roar of London, the voices of the street, the ceaseless hum, the
creaking of the great wheel of humanity as it goes round and round. And
then, perhaps, in a certain mood the undernote falls upon your ear, the
bitter, long-drawn-out cry of the hopeless and helpless. When you have
once heard it, life is never the same again. Then, if you do not find
friends, you will know what misery is."

They were both silent for a few minutes. A car passed them unnoticed.
Then she looked at him curiously.

"For a lawyer," she remarked, "you are a very imaginative person."

He laughed.

"Ah, well, I was talking just then of how I felt in those days. I was a
boy then, you know. I dare say I could go back now to my old rooms and
live there without a thrill."

She shook her head.

"What one has once felt," she murmured, "comes back always."

"Sometimes only the echo," he answered, "and that is weariness."

They walked for a little way in silence. Then she spoke to him in an
altered tone.

"I have heard a good deal about you during the last few weeks," she
said. "You are very much to be congratulated, they tell me. I am sure
I am very glad that you have been so fortunate."

"Thank you," he answered. "To tell you the truth, it all seems very
marvellous to me. Only a few months ago your uncle was almost my only
client of importance."

"Lord Arranmore was your father's friend though, was he not?"

"They came together abroad," he answered, "and Lord Arranmore was with
my father when he die