that the hall was now empty. There were the chairs turning in towards
each other where people had sat talking, and the empty glasses on little
tables, and the newspapers scattered on the floor. As he shut the door
he felt as if he were enclosed in a square box, and instantly shrivelled
up. It was all very bright and very small. He stopped for a minute by
the long table to find a paper which he had meant to read, but he was
still too much under the influence of the dark and the fresh air to
consider carefully which paper it was or where he had seen it.

As he fumbled vaguely among the papers he saw a figure cross the tail of
his eye, coming downstairs. He heard the swishing sound of skirts, and
to his great surprise, Evelyn M. came up to him, laid her hand on the
table as if to prevent him from taking up a paper, and said:

"You're just the person I wanted to talk to." Her voice was a little
unpleasant and metallic, her eyes were very bright, and she kept them
fixed upon him.

"To talk to me?" he repeated. "But I'm half asleep."

"But I think you understand better than most people," she answered, and
sat down on a little chair placed beside a big leather chair so that
Hewet had to sit down beside her.

"Well?" he said. He yawned openly, and lit a cigarette. He could not
believe that this was really happening to him. "What is it?"

"Are you really sympathetic, or is it just a pose?" she demanded.

"It's for you to say," he replied. "I'm interested, I think." He still
felt numb all over and as if she was much too close to him.

"Any one can be interested!" she cried impatiently. "Your friend Mr.
Hirst's interested, I daresay however, I do believe in you. You look
as if you'd got a nice sister, somehow." She paused, picking at some
sequins on her knees, and then, as if she had made up her mind, she
started off, "Anyhow, I'm going to ask your advice. D'you ever get into
a state where you don't know your own mind? That's the state I'm in now.
You see, last night at the dance Raymond Oliver,--he's the tall dark
boy who looks as if he had Indian blood in him, but he says he's not
really,--well, we were sitting out together, and he told me all about
himself, how unhappy he is at home, and how he hates being out here.
They've put him into some beastly mining business. He says it's
beastly--I should like it, I know, but that's neither here nor there.
And I felt awfully sorry for him, one couldn't help being sorry for him,