h it had been a final
insult. But he took no notice and now, at any rate, she was crying
bitterly enough.

2

"E" proved to be the top room of No. 10, a dingy lodging-house whose
front door, in accordance with the uncertain habits of its patrons, stood
open from year's end to year's end. Robert went in unnoticed. He ran up
the steep, narrow stairs, with their tattered carpeting, two steps at a
time. A queer elation surged beneath his anger and distress. Cosgrave's
failure was like a personal challenge--a defiance thrown in his teeth.
The old fight was on again. It was against odds. But then, he had
always fought against odds--won against them.

The room was Connie Edwards herself. It seemed to rush out at him in a
tearing rage, flaunting its vulgar finery and its odour of bad scent and
cheap cigarette smoke. It made him sick, and he brushed it out of his
consciousness. He did not see the poor attempts to make it decent and
attractive--the bed disguised beneath a faded Liberty cretonne, a
sentimental Christ hanging between a galaxy of matinee heroes, nor a
full-length woman's portrait, across which was scrawled "Gyp Labelle" in
letters large enough to conceal half of her outrageous nakedness. There
were even a few flowers, drooping forlornly out of a dusty vase, and a
collection of theatrical posters, to lend a touch, of serious
professionalism.

But the end of it all was a frowzy, hopeless disorder.

Cosgrave lay huddled over the littered table by the open window. The red
untidy head made a patch of grotesque colour in the general murk. He
looked like a poor rag doll that had been torn and battered in some wild
carnival scrimmage and flung aside.

There was not much in him--not much fight, as he himself said. Not the
sort to survive. Life was too strong--too difficult for him. He bungled
everything--even an exam. It would be wiser, more consistent to let him
drift. And yet at sight of that futile breakdown, it was not impatience
or contempt that Robert felt, but a choking tenderness--a fierce pity.
He had to protect him--pull him through. He had promised so much--he
forgot when: that afternoon lying in the long, sooty grass behind the
biscuit factory, or that night when he had dragged Cosgrave breathless
and staggering in pursuit of the Greatest Show in Europe. It did not
matter. It had become part of himself. And Cosgrave had always trusted
him--believed in him.

"It's all right, old