had agreed that there was something beyond life's daily grey. He took
off his top-hat and smoothed it thoughtfully. He had hitherto supposed
the unknown to be books, literature, clever conversation, culture. One
raised oneself by study, and got upsides with the world. But in that
quick interchange a new light dawned. Was that "something" walking in
the dark among the suburban hills?

He discovered that he was going bareheaded down Regent Street. London
came back with a rush. Few were about at this hour, but all whom he
passed looked at him with a hostility that was the more impressive
because it was unconscious. He put his hat on. It was too big; his head
disappeared like a pudding into a basin, the ears bending outwards at
the touch of the curly brim. He wore it a little backwards, and its
effect was greatly to elongate the face and to bring out the distance
between the eyes and the moustache. Thus equipped, he escaped criticism.
No one felt uneasy as he titupped along the pavements, the heart of a
man ticking fast in his chest.

CHAPTER XV

The sisters went out to dinner full of their adventure, and when they
were both full of the same subject, there were few dinner-parties that
could stand up against them. This particular one, which was all ladies,
had more kick in it than most, but succumbed after a struggle. Helen at
one part of the table, Margaret at the other, would talk of Mr. Bast
and of no one else, and somewhere about the entree their monologues
collided, fell ruining, and became common property. Nor was this all.
The dinner-party was really an informal discussion club; there was a
paper after it, read amid coffee-cups and laughter in the drawing-room,
but dealing more or less thoughtfully with some topic of general
interest. After the paper came a debate, and in this debate Mr. Bast
also figured, appearing now as a bright spot in civilisation, now as a
dark spot, according to the temperament of the speaker. The subject of
the paper had been, "How ought I to dispose of my money?" the reader
professing to be a millionaire on the point of death, inclined to
bequeath her fortune for the foundation of local art galleries, but open
to conviction from other sources. The various parts had been assigned
beforehand, and some of the speeches were amusing. The hostess assumed
the ungrateful role of "the millionaire's eldest son," and implored her
expiring parent not to dislocate Society by allowing such vast sums