fected him, but he was left in no
doubt that his feelings were pleasurable. She had a manner of
looking--of looking up at him and to him, of relying on him as a great
big wise man who could get poor little silly her out of a difficulty.
And when she wasn't talking she kept her mouth open, and showed her
teeth and the tip of her red, red tongue. And there was her golden
fluffy hair! But, after all, perhaps the principal thing was her
dark-blue, tight-fitting bodice--not a wrinkle in all those curves!

It is singular how a man may go through life absolutely blind to a
patent, obvious, glaring fact, and then suddenly perceive it. Henry
perceived that his mother and his aunt were badly dressed--in truth,
dowdy. It struck him as a discovery.

'Anything I can do, I'm sure----' he began.

'Oh, thank you, Mr. Knight I felt I could count on your good-nature. You
know----'

She cleared her throat, and then smiled intimately, dazzlingly, and
pushed a thin gold bangle over the wrist of her glove. And as she did so
Henry thought what bliss it would be to slip a priceless diamond
bracelet on to that arm. It was just an arm, the usual feminine arm;
every normal woman in this world has two of them; and yet----! But at
the same time, such is the contradictoriness of human nature, Henry
would have given a considerable sum to have had Miss Foster magically
removed from the room, and to be alone. The whole of his being was
deeply disturbed, as if by an earthquake. And, moreover, he could scarce
speak coherently.

'You know,' said Miss Foster, 'I want to interview you.'

He did not take the full meaning of the phrase at first.

'What about?' he innocently asked.

'Oh, about yourself, and your work, and your plans, and all that sort of
thing. The usual sort of thing, you know.'

'For a newspaper?'

She nodded.

He took the meaning. He was famous, then! People--that vague, vast
entity known as 'people'--wished to know about him. He had done
something. He had arrested attention--he, Henry, son of the draper's
manager; aged twenty-three; eater of bacon for breakfast every morning
like ordinary men; to be observed daily in the Underground, and daily
in the A.B.C. shop in Chancery Lane.

'You are thinking of _Love in Babylon_?' he inquired.

She nodded again. (The nod itself was an enchantment. 'She's just about
my age,' said Henry to himself. And he thought, without realizing that
he thought: 'She's lots older than me _practical