Stephen was obliged to conclude that, try as he might, he could not speak of his enchantment.

The person who suffered most from his strange silences and dismal spirits was, without a doubt, Mrs Brandy. She did not understand that he had changed to the whole world, she only saw that he had changed towards her. One day at the beginning of September Stephen paid her a visit. They had not met for some weeks, which had made Mrs Brandy so unhappy that she had written to Robert Austin, and Robert had gone to Stephen and scolded him for his neglect. However once Stephen had arrived in the little parlour above the shop in St James’s-street, no one could have blamed Mrs Brandy if she had wished him immediately away again. He sat with his head in his hand, sighing heavily, and had nothing to say to her. She offered him Constantia-wine, marmalade, an old-fashioned wigg bun – all sorts of delicacies – but he refused them all. He wanted nothing; and so she sat down on the opposite side of the fire and resumed her needlework – a nightcap which she was despondently embroidering for him.

“Perhaps,” she said, “you are tired of London and of me, and you wish to return to Africa?”

“No,” said Stephen.

“I dare say Africa is a remarkably charming place,” said Mrs Brandy, who seemed determined to punish herself by sending Stephen immediately to Africa. “I have always heard that it is. With oranges and pineapples everywhere one looks, and sugar canes and chocolate trees.” She had laboured fourteen years in the grocery trade and had mapped out her world in its stock. She laughed bitterly. “It seems that I would fare very ill in Africa. What need have people of shops when they have only to stretch out their hand and pluck the fruit of the nearest tree? Oh, yes! I should be ruined in no time in Africa.” She snapped a thread between her teeth. “Not that I should not be glad to go tomorrow,” She poked the thread viciously into the needle’s innocent eye, “if any one were to ask me.”

“Would you go to Africa for my sake?” asked Stephen in surprize.

She looked up. “I would go any where for your sake,” she said. “I thought you knew that.”

They regarded one another unhappily.

Stephen said that he must return and attend to his duties in Harley-street.

Outside in the street, the sky darkened and rain began to fall. People put up umbrellas. As Stephen walked up St James’s-street, he saw a strange sight – a black ship sailing towards him through the grey rainy air above the heads of the crowd. It was a frigate, some two feet high, with dirty, ragged sails and peeling paint. It rose and fell, mimicking the motion of ships at sea. Stephen shivered a little to see it. A beggar emerged from the crowd, a negro with skin as dark and shining as Stephen’s own. Fastened to his hat was this ship. As he walked he ducked and raised his head so that his ship could sail. As he went he performed his curious bobbing and swaying movements very slowly and carefully for fear of upsetting his enormous hat. The effect was of a man dancing amazingly slowly. The beggar’s name was Johnson. He was a poor, crippled sailor who had been denied a pension. Having no other means of relief, he had taken to singing and begging to make a livelihood, in which he had been most successful and he was known throughout the Town for the curious hat he wore. Johnson held out his hand to Stephen, but Stephen looked away. He always took great care not to speak to, or in any way acknowledge, negroes of low station. He feared that if he were seen speaking to such people it might be supposed that he had some connexion with them.