ightly to the efforts of his brain. He
came over to the window, and, evidently not seeing his son-in-law, faced
out into the night.

In that darkness were all the shapes and lights and shadows of a
London night in spring: the trees in dark bloom; the wan yellow of
the gas-lamps, pale emblems of the self-consciousness of towns; the
clustered shades of the tiny leaves, spilled, purple, on the surface of
the road, like bunches of black grapes squeezed down into the earth by
the feet of the passers-by. There, too, were shapes of men and women
hurrying home, and the great blocked shapes of the houses where they
lived. A halo hovered above the City--a high haze of yellow light,
dimming the stars. The black, slow figure of a policeman moved
noiselessly along the railings opposite.

From then till eleven o'clock, when he would make himself some cocoa on
a little spirit-lamp, the writer of the "Book of Universal Brotherhood"
would alternate between his bent posture above his manuscript and his
blank consideration of the night....

With a jerk, Hilary came back to his reflections beneath the bust of
Socrates.

"Each of us has a shadow in those places--in those streets!"

There certainly was a virus in that notion. One must either take it as a
jest, like Stephen; or, what must one do? How far was it one's business
to identify oneself with other people, especially the helpless--how far
to preserve oneself intact--'integer vita'? Hilary was no young person,
like his niece or Martin, to whom everything seemed simple; nor was
he an old person like their grandfather, for whom life had lost its
complications.

And, very conscious of his natural disabilities for a decision on a
like, or indeed on any, subject except, perhaps, a point of literary
technique, he got up from his writing-table, and, taking his little
bulldog, went out. His intention was to visit Mrs. Hughs in Hound
Street, and see with his own eyes the state of things. But he had
another reason, too, for wishing to go there ....

CHAPTER IV

THE LITTLE MODEL

When in the preceding autumn Bianca began her picture called "The
Shadow," nobody was more surprised than Hilary that she asked him to
find her a model for the figure. Not knowing the nature of the picture,
nor having been for many years--perhaps never--admitted into the
workings of his wife's spirit, he said:

"Why don't you ask Thyme to sit for you?"

Blanca answered: "She's not the type at all--to