iumphing
over the murderous forces of nature. It puts one in conceit with one's
kind.

At Waterloo I handed Lola over to her maid, who had come to meet her,
and, leaving Rogers in charge of my luggage, I drove homeward in a cab.

It was only as I was crossing Waterloo Bridge and saw the dark mass of
the Houses of Parliament looming on the other side of the river, and the
light in the tower which showed that the House was sitting, that I
began to realise my situation. As exiles in desert lands yearn for green
fields, so yearned I for those green benches. In vain I represented to
myself how often I had yawned on them, how often I had cursed my folly
in sitting on them and listening to empty babble when I might have been
dining cosily, or talking to a pretty woman or listening to a comic
opera, or performing some other useful and soul-satisfying action of
the kind; in vain I told myself what a monument of futility was that
building; I longed to be in it and of it once again. And when I realised
that I yearned for the impossible, my heart was like a stone. For,
indeed, I, Simon de Gex, with London once a toy to my hand, was coming
into it now a penniless adventurer to seek my fortune.

The cab turned into the Strand, which greeted me as affably as a
pandemonium. Motor omnibuses whizzed at me, cabs rattled and jeered
at me, private motors and carriages passed me by in sleek contempt;
policemen regarded me scornfully as, with uplifted hand regulating
the traffic, they held me up; pavements full of people surged along
ostentatiously showing that they did not care a brass farthing for
me; the thousands of lights with their million reflections, from shop
fronts, restaurants, theatres, and illuminated signs glared pitilessly
at me. A harsh roar of derision filled the air, like the bass to the
treble of the newsboys who yelled in my face. I was wearing a fur-lined
coat--just the thing a penniless adventurer would wear. I had a valet
attending to my luggage--just the sort of thing a penniless adventurer
would have. I was driving to the Albany--just the sort of place where a
penniless adventurer would live. And London knew all this--and scoffed
at me in stony heartlessness. The only object that gave me the slightest
sympathy was Nelson on top of his column. He seemed to say, "After all,
you _can't_ feel such a fool and so much out in the cold as I do up
here."

At Piccadilly Circus I found the same atmosphere of hostility. My ca