long before her lips could utter the words, but at
length they were spoken. And Beatrice assured her that Crewe, good silly
fellow, did not even suspect the truth.

CHAPTER 5

'For a man,' said Tarrant, 'who can pay no more than twelve and sixpence
a week, it's the best accommodation to be found in London. There's
an air of civilisation about the house. Look; a bath, and a little
book-case, and an easy-chair such as can be used by a man who respects
himself. You feel you are among people who tub o' mornings and know the
meaning of leisure. Then the view!'

He was talking to his friend Harvey Munden, the journalist. The room
in which they stood might with advantage have been larger, but as a
bed-chamber it served well enough, and only the poverty of its occupant,
who put it to the additional use of sitting-room and study, made the
lack of space particularly noticeable. The window afforded a prospect
pleasant enough to eyes such as theirs. Above the lower houses on the
opposite side of the way appeared tall trees, in the sere garb of later
autumn, growing by old Westminster School; and beyond them, grey in
twilight, rose the towers of the Abbey. From this point of view no
vicinage of modern brickwork spoilt their charm; the time-worn monitors
stood alone against a sky of ruddy smoke-drift and purple cloud.

'The old Adam is stronger than ever in me,' he pursued. 'If I were
condemned for life to the United States, I should go mad, and perish in
an attempt to swim the Atlantic.'

'Then why did you stay so long?'

'I could have stayed with advantage even longer. It's something to have
studied with tolerable thoroughness the most hateful form of society yet
developed. I saw it at first as a man does who is living at his ease;
at last, as a poor devil who is thankful for the institution of free
lunches. I went first-class, and I came back as a steerage passenger. It
has been a year well spent.'

It had made him, in aspect, more than a twelve-month older. His lounging
attitude, the spirit of his talk, showed that he was unchanged in bodily
and mental habits; but certain lines new-graven upon his visage, and
an austerity that had taken the place of youthful self-consciousness,
signified a more than normal progress in experience.

'Do you know,' said Munden slyly, 'that you have brought back a
trans-Atlantic accent?'

'Accent? The devil! I don't believe it.'

'Intonation, at all events.'

Tarrant professed