knew he would be very vexed, I...."

James put his hand behind his ear:

"What?" he said. "I'm getting very deaf. I suppose I don't hear people.
Emily's got a bad toe. We shan't be able to start for Wales till the end
of the month. There' s always something!" And, having got what he
wanted, he took his hat and went away.

It was a fine afternoon, and he walked across the Park towards Soames's,
where he intended to dine, for Emily's toe kept her in bed, and Rachel
and Cicely were on a visit to the country. He took the slanting path
from the Bayswater side of the Row to the Knightsbridge Gate, across a
pasture of short, burnt grass, dotted with blackened sheep, strewn with
seated couples and strange waifs; lying prone on their faces, like
corpses on a field over which the wave of battle has rolled.

He walked rapidly, his head bent, looking neither to right nor, left.
The appearance of this park, the centre of his own battle-field, where he
had all his life been fighting, excited no thought or speculation in his
mind. These corpses flung down, there, from out the press and turmoil of
the struggle, these pairs of lovers sitting cheek by jowl for an hour of
idle Elysium snatched from the monotony of their treadmill, awakened no
fancies in his mind; he had outlived that kind of imagination; his nose,
like the nose of a sheep, was fastened to the pastures on which he
browsed.

One of his tenants had lately shown a disposition to be behind-hand in
his rent, and it had become a grave question whether he had not better
turn him out at once, and so run the risk of not re-letting before
Christmas. Swithin had just been let in very badly, but it had served
him right--he had held on too long.

He pondered this as he walked steadily, holding his umbrella carefully by
the wood, just below the crook of the handle, so as to keep the ferule
off the ground, and not fray the silk in the middle. And, with his thin,
high shoulders stooped, his long legs moving with swift mechanical
precision, this passage through the Park, where the sun shone with a
clear flame on so much idleness--on so many human evidences of the
remorseless battle of Property, raging beyond its ring--was like the
flight of some land bird across the sea.

He felt a--touch on the arm as he came out at Albert Gate.

It was Soames, who, crossing from the shady side of Piccadilly, where he
had been walking home from the office, had suddenly appeared alongside.