ATIONAL KNOT

CHAPTER I

At seven o'clock on a fine evening in April the gas had just been
lighted in a room on the first floor of a house in York Road, Lambeth. A
man, recently washed and brushed, stood on the hearthrug before a pier
glass, arranging a white necktie, part of his evening dress. He was
about thirty, well grown, and fully developed muscularly. There was no
cloud of vice or trouble upon him: he was concentrated and calm, making
no tentative movements of any sort (even a white tie did not puzzle him
into fumbling), but acting with a certainty of aim and consequent
economy of force, dreadful to the irresolute. His face was brown, but
his auburn hair classed him as a fair man.

The apartment, a drawing-room with two windows, was dusty and untidy.
The paint and wall paper had not been renewed for years; nor did the
pianette, which stood near the fireplace, seem to have been closed
during that time; for the interior was dusty, and the inner end of every
key begrimed. On a table between the windows were some tea things, with
a heap of milliner's materials, and a brass candlestick which had been
pushed back to make room for a partially unfolded cloth. There was a
second table near the door, crowded with coils, batteries, a
galvanometer, and other electrical apparatus. The mantelpiece was
littered with dusty letters, and two trays of Doulton ware which
ornamented it were filled with accounts, scraps of twine, buttons, and
rusty keys.

A shifting, rustling sound, as of somebody dressing, which had been
audible for some minutes through the folding doors, now ceased, and a
handsome young woman entered. She had thick black hair, fine dark eyes,
an oval face, a clear olive complexion, and an elastic figure. She was
incompletely attired in a petticoat that did not hide her ankles, and
stays of bright red silk with white laces and seams. Quite unconcerned
at the presence of the man, she poured out a cup of tea; carried it to
the mantelpiece; and began to arrange her hair before the glass. He,
without looking round, completed the arrangement of his tie, looked at
it earnestly for a moment, and said, "Have you got a pin about you?"

"There is one in the pincushion on my table," she said; "but I think
it's a black one. I dont know where the deuce all the pins go to." Then,
casting off the subject, she whistled a long and florid cadenza, and
added, by way of instrumental interlude, a remarkably close imitation o