He laughed, and teased her. "'The soul's what matters. We literary
people don't care about dress."

"Well, you ought to care. And I believe you do. Can't you change?"

"Too far." He had rooms in South Kensington. "And I've forgot my
card-case. There's for you!"

She shook her head. "Naughty, naughty boy! Whatever will you do?"

"Send in my name, or ask for a bit of paper and write it. Hullo! that's
Tilliard!"

Tilliard blushed, partly on account of the faux pas he had made last
June, partly on account of the restaurant. He explained how he came to
be pigging in Soho: it was so frightfully convenient and so frightfully
cheap.

"Just why Rickie brings me," said Miss Pembroke.

"And I suppose you're here to study life?" said Tilliard, sitting down.

"I don't know," said Rickie, gazing round at the waiters and the guests.

"Doesn't one want to see a good deal of life for writing? There's life
of a sort in Soho,--Un peu de faisan, s'il vows plait."

Agnes also grabbed at the waiter, and paid. She always did the paying,
Rickie muddled with his purse.

"I'm cramming," pursued Tilliard, "and so naturally I come into contact
with very little at present. But later on I hope to see things." He
blushed a little, for he was talking for Rickie's edification. "It is
most frightfully important not to get a narrow or academic outlook,
don't you think? A person like Ansell, who goes from Cambridge,
home--home, Cambridge--it must tell on him in time."

"But Mr. Ansell is a philosopher."

"A very kinky one," said Tilliard abruptly. "Not my idea of a
philosopher. How goes his dissertation?"

"He never answers my letters," replied Rickie. "He never would. I've
heard nothing since June."

"It's a pity he sends in this year. There are so many good people in.
He'd have afar better chance if he waited."

"So I said, but he wouldn't wait. He's so keen about this particular
subject."

"What is it?" asked Agnes.

"About things being real, wasn't it, Tilliard?"

"That's near enough."

"Well, good luck to him!" said the girl. "And good luck to you, Mr.
Tilliard! Later on, I hope, we'll meet again."

They parted. Tilliard liked her, though he did not feel that she was
quite in his couche sociale. His sister, for instance, would never have
been lured into a Soho restaurant--except for the experience of the
thing. Tilliard's couche sociale permitted experiences. Provided his
heart did not go out to the poor and the unorthodox,