“Wouldn’t be much good to you, would they?” Sir Reginald grinned at him amiably.

“No, and neither will your library, thank you very much! I’m past caring now. What’s the good? I get down off that stool at night with my brains addled and useless. I go and stuff myself with dull cheap food because I’m empty. I let the girls alone because I can’t afford to fall decently in love and I don’t care about the other thing. I exist. And the next day it’s all to do over again. And it must go on—it must! I can’t stop. I daren’t think of losing my job. I must hang on and on, because if I let go I starve. So what does it all come to?” He thrust his hand into his coat pocket and brought out the fiver. “Here. I don’t need this.”

Sir Reginald laid his card on top of the note and forced both back into Chantrell’s hand.

“Come and see me,” he said.

“Thanks, I’d rather not.”

“Next time,” said Sir Reginald with his cheerful disregard of opposition, “you come and dine with me.” He rose, boosting himself off the low step by a heavy hand on Chantrell’s shoulder.

“In these clothes?” suggested Chantrell ironically.

“Why not? Just the two of us. No females in my household, except the cook. It’d be a change, don’t you think—for both of us. Y’know, I get fed up too, in my way. Getting to the age where the same old friends are thinning out. Got to make new ones.” His smile was kindly and free of patronage, even a bit wistful. “How about it?”

“You’re very good, sir,” said Chantrell, with a sudden return to his habitual listless courtesy.

“Maybe. Maybe not. Do what I can.” He contemplated Chantrell a moment more, standing over the slack young body on the step. Chantrell was leaning back against the pedestal, his face hidden by the brim of his hat, drowsy with nervous exhaustion. “That’s better,” Sir Reginald said, perceiving that the immediate crisis was over. “You wouldn’t like to give me your word of honor you won’t go fooling about with the River again?”

“No,” said Chantrell deliberately, without looking at him. “I wouldn’t like to.”

“Suppose we just leave it that you’ll come and see me first,” persisted Sir Reginald.

Chantrell did not reply.

“It’s no good trying to dodge things, y’know. You must just serve your time here like the rest of us,” Sir Reginald explained patiently, and groped for words to clothe thoughts he had never attempted to utter before. “There’s some sort of pattern,” he brought out finally. “If you muck it up you lose your last chance.”

“How did you know that?” said Hilary.