lose for the day. She was short-nosed, pulpy-mouthed and
faunish-eyed, and only the rather remarkable smallness of the head on the
splendid thick throat saved her from ordinariness. He, too, might have
been seen in his thousands at the close of any day, hurrying home to
Catford or Walham Green or Tufnell Park to tea and an evening with a
girl or in a billiard-room, or else dining cheaply "up West" preparatory
to smoking cigarettes from yellow packets in the upper circle of a
music-hall. Four inches of white up-and-down collar encased his neck; and
as he lifted his trousers at the knee to clear his purple socks, the pair
of paper covers showed, that had protected his cuffs during the day at
the office. He removed them, crumpled them up and threw them on the fire;
and the momentary addition to the light of the upper chamber showed how
curd-white was that superb neck of hers and how moody and tired her eyes.

From his face only one would have guessed, and guessed wrongly, that his
preferences were for billiard-rooms and music-halls. His conversation
showed them to be otherwise. It was of Polytechnic classes that he spoke,
and of the course of lectures in English literature that had just begun.
And, as if somebody had asserted that the pursuit of such studies was not
compatible with a certain measure of physical development also, he
announced that he was not sure that he should not devote, say, half an
evening a week, on Wednesdays, to training in the gymnasium.

"_Mens sana in corpore sano_, Bessie," he said; "a sound mind in a sound
body, you know. That's tremendously important, especially when a fellow
spends the day in a stuffy office. Yes, I think I shall give it half
Wednesdays, from eight-thirty to nine-thirty; sends you home in a glow.
But I was going to tell you about the Literature Class. The second
lecture's to-night. The first was splendid, all about the languages of
Europe and Asia--what they call the Indo-Germanic languages, you know.
Aryans. I can't tell you exactly without my notes, but the Hindoos and
Persians, I think it was, they crossed the Himalaya Mountains and spread
westward somehow, as far as Europe. That was the way it all began. It
was splendid, the way the lecturer put it. English is a Germanic
language, you know. Then came the Celts. I wish I'd brought my notes. I
see you've been reading; let's look--"

A book lay on her knees, its back warped by the heat of the fire. He took
it and opened it.