t going!'

Underneath was written: "The Ambler."

George stood long looking at the apotheosis of his fame. His star was
high in the heavens. With the eye of his mind he saw a long procession
of turf triumphs, a long vista of days and nights, and in them, round
them, of them--Helen Bellow; and by an odd coincidence, as he stood
there, the artist's glazed look came over his eyes, the little line
sprang up between them.

He turned at the sound of voices and sank into a chair. To have been
caught thus gazing at himself would have jarred on his sense of what was
right.

It was twenty minutes past seven, when, in evening dress, he left the
club, and took a shilling's-worth to Buckingham Gate. Here he dismissed
his cab, and turned up the large fur collar of his coat. Between the brim
of his opera-hat and the edge of that collar nothing but his eyes were
visible. He waited, compressing his lips, scrutinising each hansom that
went by. In the soft glow of one coming fast he saw a hand raised to the
trap. The cab stopped; George stepped out of the shadow and got in. The
cab went on, and Mrs. Bellew's arm was pressed against his own.

It was their simple formula for arriving at a restaurant together.

In the third of several little rooms, where the lights were shaded, they
sat down at a table in a corner, facing each a wall, and, underneath, her
shoe stole out along the floor and touched his patent leather boot. In
their eyes, for all their would-be wariness, a light smouldered which
would not be put out. An habitue, sipping claret at a table across the
little room, watched them in a mirror, and there came into his old heart
a glow of warmth, half ache, half sympathy; a smile of understanding
stirred the crow's-feet round his eyes. Its sweetness ebbed, and left a
little grin about his shaven lips. Behind the archway in the
neighbouring room two waiters met, and in their nods and glances was that
same unconscious sympathy, the same conscious grin. And the old habitue
thought:

'How long will it last?'.... "Waiter, some coffee and my bill!"

He had meant to go to the play, but he lingered instead to look at Mrs.
Bellew's white shoulders and bright eyes in the kindly mirror. And he
thought:

'Young days at present. Ah, young days!'....

"Waiter, a Benedictine!" And hearing her laugh, O his old heart ached.
'No one,' he thought, 'will ever laugh like that for me again!'....
"Here, waiter, how's this? You've