Babylon_ had disappeared. _Love in Babylon_ was smothered
up in spring onions.

'Keep your nerve, madam,' said the constable, seeing signs of an
emotional crisis, 'and go and stand in that barber's doorway--both of
you.'

The ladies obeyed.

In due course _Love in Babylon_ was excavated, chapter by chapter, and
Aunt Annie held it safely once more, rumpled but complete.

By the luckiest chance an empty four-wheeler approached.

The sisters got into it, and Aunt Annie gave the address.

'As quick as you can,' she said to the driver, 'but do drive slowly.'

CHAPTER X

MARK SNYDER

Three-quarters of an hour later Henry might have been seen--in fact, was
seen by a number of disinterested wayfarers--to enter a magnificent new
block of offices and flats in Charing Cross Road. _Love in Babylon_ was
firmly gripped under his right arm. Partly this strange burden and
partly the brilliant aspect of the building made him feel self-conscious
and humble and rather unlike his usual calm self. For, although Henry
was accustomed to offices, he was not accustomed to magnificent offices.
There are offices in Lincoln's Inn Fields, offices of extreme wealth,
which, were they common lodging-houses, would be instantly condemned by
the County Council. Powells was such a one--and Sir George had a reputed
income of twenty thousand a year. At Powells the old Dickensian
tradition was kept vigorously alive by every possible means. Dirt and
gloom were omnipresent. Cleanliness and ample daylight would have been
deemed unbusinesslike, as revolutionary and dangerous as a typewriter.
One day, in winter, Sir George had taken cold, and he had attributed his
misfortune, in language which he immediately regretted, to the fact that
'that d----d woman had cleaned the windows'--probably with a damp cloth.
'That d----d woman' was the caretaker, a grey-haired person usually
dressed in sackcloth, who washed herself, incidentally, while washing
the stairs. At Powells, nothing but the stairs was ever put to the
indignity of a bath.

That Henry should be somewhat diffident about invading Kenilworth
Mansions was therefore not surprising. He climbed three granite steps,
passed through a pair of swinging doors, traversed eight feet of
tesselated pavement, climbed three more granite steps, passed through
another pair of swinging doors, and discovered himself in a spacious
marble hall, with a lift-cabinet resembling a confessional, and broad
stairs be