‘ “Rector Denies Assault Charge”,’ Ern read out from the crumpled newspaper. ‘ “Choir Outing Allegations.” Give ’em summat to sing about.’ He paused, then looked up. ‘You ’aven’t been yourself lately, Charley. Anything on your mind?’

‘Oh, just what it says in the advertisements,’ Charles jerked out with a feeble attempt at lightness. ‘A traffic jam somewhere in those twenty-eight feet of digestive tract. I’m going to get myself a guinea’s worth of pills.’

He could see that Ern, though forbearing to pursue the topic, was not convinced, and for a moment regretted that he had rejected the invitation to confide in the older man, in whose look and voice there had been a new hint of gentleness and concern. But the regret passed; nothing must shatter the sacred rule of silence between them on personal topics. And in any case, what was there to confide that would not make him look absurd? ‘I saw a girl having dinner with her uncle in the Grand ten days ago, and I can’t forget about her.’ He might as easily have explained to Mrs. Smythe, that morning in the lodging-house, why it was that he had no job.

It was not that he had succumbed without putting up a fight. On the very first morning after the fatal vision, he had set out briskly in the frosty air, determined to immerse himself in the simple realities that had already saved him from so much folly. When lunch-time came and he realized with a shock that he had not succeeded for five minutes together in banishing the image of that small dark head, he had put it down to a temporary derange­ment. But that evening it was just as bad. And the next morning, and the next evening, and every morning and evening till he felt, in despair, that his carefree life was being poisoned. All its pleasures had become savourless. As he went about his work, or sat smoking in the loft of an evening, or reeled back from the weekly drinking-bout with Froulish, a voice inside his head would nag, ‘Yes, but this isn’t bringing you any nearer to HER’. And what else had any meaning?

And yet, how empty was any aspiration, however faint, in her direction! He did not even know who she was or where she lived. And it would profit him nothing to find out. Whoever she was, she clearly moved in circles that demanded money as a condition of entry—money, good clothes, social position. Men he despised, men like Robert Tharkles and Hutchins, would stand more chance than he did. Any crawling vermin who happened to have his pockets well lined could leave him standing in the race. He began to think increasingly about money. The poison was doing its work.