No drink for Hilary, he thought. And I ought to need it worse than they do.

Calthorpe’s quiet voice reached him again on the threshold.

“One for the road,” said Calthorpe, as he lifted his glass.

Hilary drifted out into the entrance hall and collected his hat from the peg. The commissionaire was writing nearsightedly in the message book and did not raise his eyes.

Well, what next? What was the good of it, like this? How did one pass one’s time? Time? There was no such thing as time, any more, for him....

Lost in loneliness, and feeling very strange, Hilary pushed open the swing door and went out onto the step. From there he glanced back idly. The commissionaire was gaping at the door, which still swung slightly from Hilary’s passage. The hall was empty. No one had gone in or out. The commissionaire was seeing things.

Hilary watched him, grinning, from the step. The situation suddenly began to have possibilities. One could amuse oneself, after all. Why not endow the club with a mystery? What if word went round tomorrow that Hilary Shenstone had occupied his old room the night after he was buried out in Peshawur—slept in his bed, ran his bath water—left no luggage. It would make history in Pall Mall. Only they’d never let it go beyond the four wails of the club. They wouldn’t dare, because they’d be laughed at by all the other clubs.

The idea of spending the night in his usual bedroom in the club appealed to him. At least it would be cozier than the doorstep, and tomorrow morning he would look in on his mother in Park Street. Yes, and George. Fancy George setting his cap at Alice....

But with his hand on the swing door again, he hesitated. He couldn’t push it. Not again, with the commissionaire still there. Feeling self-conscious and silly, he hung about on the step outside, waiting for someone to open the door for him. It was late. No one was likely to be coming in from the street. Some of them inside would be going home presently. There was no hurry. There would never be any hurry again...

At last a young man in an opera hat did come out— another new member. He gave the door a vigorous push and Hilary was able to step through on its second swing. In the hall again he skipped up the stairs to the bedroom floor and went along the passage to his right, turned the knob of the door to the room he always occupied, and opened the door briskly.

The light was on, and a fat little man in a pince-nez was sitting up in bed reading.

“Oh, sorry—” said Hilary, halting in his tracks.