s. Chepstow and he could be linked by their dislike. His
instinct was to avoid her, not to let this link be formed. Subsequent
circumstances made him ask himself whether men do not often call things
towards them with the voices of their fears.

The season was waning fast, was nearly at an end, when one night, very
late, Nigel called in Cleveland Square. Isaacson had just come back from
dining with the Dean of Waynfleet when the bell rang. He feared a
professional summons, and was relieved when a sleepy servant asked if he
would see Mr. Armine. They met in a small, upstairs room where Isaacson
sat at night, a room lined with books, cosy, but perhaps a little
oppressive. As Nigel came in quickly with a light coat over his arm and
a crush hat in his hand, a clock on the mantel piece struck one.

"I caught sight of you just now in St. James's Street in your motor, or
I wouldn't have come so late," Nigel said. "Were you going straight to
bed? Tell me the truth. If you were, I'll be off."

"I don't think I was. I've been dining out, and should have had to read
something. That's why you kept your coat?"

"To demonstrate my good intention. Well!"

He put the coat and hat on a chair.

"Will you have anything?"

"No, thanks."

Nigel sat down in an arm-chair.

"I've seen so little of you, Isaacson. And I'm going away to-morrow."

"You've had enough of it?"

"More than enough."

Isaacson was sitting by a table on which lay a number of books. Now and
then he touched one with his long and sallow fingers, lifted its cover,
then let it drop mechanically.

"You are coming back in the autumn?"

"For some days, in passing through. I'm going to Egypt again."

"I envy you--I envy you."

As he looked at Nigel's Northern fairness, and thought of his own
darkness, it seemed to him that he should be going to the sun, Nigel
remaining in the lands where the light is pale. Perhaps a somewhat
similar thought occurred to Nigel, for he said:

"You ought to go there some day. You'd be in your right place there.
Have you ever been?"

"Never. I've often wanted to go."

"Why don't you go?"

Isaacson's mind asked that question, and his Jewishness replied. He made
money in London. Every day he spent out of London was a loss of so much
money.

"Some day," Nigel continued, "you must take a holiday and see Egypt."

"This winter?" said Isaacson.

He lifted the cover of a book. His dark, shining, almost too intelligent
eyes looked