urviving leaves. The sky was of a blue-black
with golden rents and gleams that travelled steadily eastwards. Except
the man with newspapers at the corner of Alexandra Grove, scarcely a
sign of life showed along the vistas of Fulham Road; but the clock over
the jeweller's was alive and bearing the usual false witness. From the
upper open galleries of the Workhouse one or two old men and old women
in uniform looked down indifferently upon the free world which they had
left for ever. Then an omnibus appeared faintly advancing from the
beautiful grey distance of the straight and endless street. George
crossed the road on his way towards Redcliffe Gardens and Earl's Court.
He was very smart, indeed smarter than ever, having produced in himself
quite naturally and easily a fair imitation of the elegant figures
which, upon his visits to the restaurant-building in Piccadilly, he had
observed airing themselves round about Bond Street. His hair was smooth
like polished marble; his hat and stick were at the right angle; his
overcoat was new, and it indicated the locality of his waist; the spots
of colour in his attire complied with the operative decrees. His young
face had in it nothing that obviously separated him from the average
youth of his clothes. Nobody would have said of him, at a glance, that
he might be a particularly serious individual. And most people would
have at once classed him as a callow pleasure-seeking person in the act
of seeking pleasure.

Nevertheless he was at that moment particularly serious, and his
seriousness was growing. His secret engagement had affected him, in part
directly, and in part by the intensification of ambitious endeavour
which had resulted from contact with that fount of seriousness,
Marguerite. Although still entirely dependent--even to cigarette
money--upon the benevolence of a couple of old individuals a hundred and
fifty miles off, he reckoned that he was advancing in the world. The
Intermediate Examination was past, and already he felt that he had come
to grips with the Final and would emerge victorious. He felt too that
his general knowledge and the force and variety of his ideas were
increasing. At times, when he and Marguerite talked, he was convinced
that both of them had achieved absolute knowledge, and that their
criticisms of the world were and would always be unanswerable. After the
Final, he hoped, his uncle would buy him a share in the Lucas & Enwright
practice. In due seas