ad not troubled him for years had suddenly begun to hurt again. And yet
how happy he had been, as a little boy, when she had just touched him.

It was evidently a celebration in her honour. A tall young man with side
whiskers who came in late presented her with a bunch of roses in the name
of the whole company and with a gay, exaggerated homage. They were a
jolly crowd. They had in common their youth and an appearance of
good-natured disregard for the things that ordinary people cared about.
Otherwise they were of all sorts and conditions, like their clothes. Two
or three were in evening dress, and one girl who sat at the end of the
table and smoked incessantly wore a shabby coat and skirt and a raffish
billycock hat. Chelsea or the University Schools was stamped on all of
them. There wasn't much that they didn't know, and there was very little
that they believed in--not even themselves. For they were of the very
newest type, and would have scorned to admit to a Purpose or a Faith.
But they could not help being young and rather liking one another, and
the good food and the promise of a riotous evening.

Robert knew their kind. He even knew by sight the side-whiskered young
man who now clapped his hands like an Eastern potentate. He had been of
Robert's year at the University, and had been ploughed twice.

"Wine-ho! Fellow creatures, what is it to be? In honour of the occasion
and to show our contempt of circumstances, shall we say a magnum of
Heidsieck? All in favour wave their paws----"

The girl in the billycock hat blew a great puff of smoke towards him.

"Oh, death and damnation, Howard! Haven't I been explaining to you all
the afternoon that I owe rent for a fortnight to a devil in female form,
and that unless someone buys 'A Sunset over the Surrey Cliffs seen Upside
Down,' Gerty will be on the streets? Make it beer with a dash o'
bitters."

Finally it was Francey who decided. She beckoned, not looking at him,
and Robert with a little obsequious bow, handed her the wine card and
waited at her elbow. He was not afraid of Howard's recognition. They
had never spoken to one another, and in any case Howard would not believe
his eyes.

It was strange to stand near to her again and to recognize the little
things about her that had fascinated small Robert Stonehouse--the line of
her neck, the brown mole at the corner of her eye which people were
always trying to rub off, the way her hair curled up f