an acquaintance, was
talking at the top of the steps beneath the portal of a club in
Piccadilly. It was after ten by the clocks, and nearly, but not quite,
dark. A warm, rather heavy, evening shower had ceased. This was the
beginning of the great macintosh epoch, by-product of the war,
when the paucity of the means of vehicular locomotion had rendered
macintoshes permissible, even for women with pretensions to smartness;
and at intervals stylish girls on their way home from unaccustomed
overtime, passed the doors in transparent macintoshes of pink, yellow
or green, as scornful as military officers of the effeminate umbrella,
whose use was being confined to clubmen and old dowdies.

The acquaintance sought advice from G.J. about the shutting up
of households for Belgian refugees. G.J. answered absently, not
concealing that he was in a hurry. He had, in fact, been held up
within three minutes of the scene of his secret idyll, and was anxious
to arrive there. He had promised himself this surprise visit to
Christine as some sort of recompense and narcotic for the immense
disturbance of spirit which he had suffered at Wrikton.

That morning Concepcion had been invisible, but at his early breakfast
he had received a note from her, a brief but masterly composition,
if ever so slightly theatrical. He was conscious of tenderness for
Concepcion, of sympathy with her, of a desire to help to restore
her to that which by misfortune she had lost. But the first of these
sentiments he resolutely put aside. He was determined to change his
mood towards her for the sake of his own tranquillity; and he had
convinced himself that his wise, calm, common sense was capable of
saving her from any tragic and fatal folly. He had her in the hollow
of his hand; but if she was expecting too much from him she would be
gradually disappointed. He must have peace; he could not allow a bomb
to be thrown into his habits; he was a bachelor of over fifty
whose habits had the value of inestimable jewels and whose perfect
independence was the most precious thing in the world. At his age he
could not marry a volcano, a revolution, a new radio-active element
exhibiting properties which were an enigma to social science.
Concepcion would turn his existence into an endless drama of which
she alone, with her deep-rooted, devilish talent for the sensational,
would always choose the setting, as she had chosen the window and the
weir. No; he must not mistake affecti