he wanted time to think it over, no doubt! He
would not press her, for she would be coming to give her lesson to-morrow
afternoon, and he should see her then when she had got used to the idea.
In the cab he talked only of the Carmen; he had seen better in the old
days, but this one was not bad at all. When he took her hand to say
good-night, she bent quickly forward and kissed his forehead.

"Good-bye, dear Uncle Jolyon, you have been so sweet to me."

"To-morrow then," he said. "Good-night. Sleep well." She echoed
softly: "Sleep well" and from the cab window, already moving away, he saw
her face screwed round towards him, and her hand put out in a gesture
which seemed to linger.

He sought his room slowly. They never gave him the same, and he could
not get used to these 'spick-and-spandy' bedrooms with new furniture and
grey-green carpets sprinkled all over with pink roses. He was wakeful
and that wretched Habanera kept throbbing in his head.

His French had never been equal to its words, but its sense he knew, if
it had any sense, a gipsy thing--wild and unaccountable. Well, there was
in life something which upset all your care and plans--something which
made men and women dance to its pipes. And he lay staring from deep-sunk
eyes into the darkness where the unaccountable held sway. You thought
you had hold of life, but it slipped away behind you, took you by the
scruff of the neck, forced you here and forced you there, and then,
likely as not, squeezed life out of you! It took the very stars like
that, he shouldn't wonder, rubbed their noses together and flung them
apart; it had never done playing its pranks. Five million people in this
great blunderbuss of a town, and all of them at the mercy of that
Life-Force, like a lot of little dried peas hopping about on a board when
you struck your fist on it. Ah, well! Himself would not hop much
longer--a good long sleep would do him good!

How hot it was up here!--how noisy! His forehead burned; she had kissed
it just where he always worried; just there--as if she had known the very
place and wanted to kiss it all away for him. But, instead, her lips
left a patch of grievous uneasiness. She had never spoken in quite that
voice, had never before made that lingering gesture or looked back at him
as she drove away.

He got out of bed and pulled the curtains aside; his room faced down over
the river. There was little air, but the sight of that breadth of wat