b
was blocked in the theatre-going tide, and in neighbouring vehicles
I had glimpses of fair faces above soft wraps and the profiles of
moustached young men in white ties. They assumed an aggravating air of
ownership of the blazing thoroughfare, the only gay and joyous spot
in London. I, too, had owned it once, but now I felt an alien; and the
whole spirit of Piccadilly Circus rammed the sentiment home--I was an
alien and an undesirable alien. I felt even more lost and friendless as
I entered the long, cold arcade (known as the Ropewalk) of the Albany.

I found my sister Agatha waiting for me in the library. I had
telegraphed to her from Southampton. She was expensively dressed in grey
silk, and wore the family diamonds. We exchanged the family kiss and the
usual incoherent greetings of our race. She expressed her delight at my
restoration to health and gave me satisfactory tidings of Tom Durrell,
her husband, of the children, and of our sister Jane. Then she shook her
head at me, and made me feel like a naughty little boy. This I resented.
Being the head of the family, I had always encouraged the deferential
attitude which my sisters, dear right-minded things, had naturally
assumed from babyhood.

"Oh, Simon, what a time you've given us!"

She had never spoken to me like this in her life.

"That's nothing, my dear Agatha," said I just a bit tartly, "to the
time I've given myself. I'm sorry for you, but I think you ought to be a
little sorry for me."

"I am. More sorry than I can say. Oh, Simon, how could you?"

"How could I what?" I cried, unwontedly regardless of the refinements of
language.

"Mix yourself up in this dreadful affair?"

"My dear girl," said I, "if you had got mixed up in a railway collision,
I shouldn't ask you how you managed to do it. I should be sorry for you
and feel your arms and legs and inquire whether you had sustained any
internal injuries."

She is a pretty, spare woman with a bird-like face and soft brown hair
just turning grey; and as good-hearted a little creature as ever adored
five healthy children and an elderly baronet with disastrous views on
scientific farming.

"Dear old boy," she said in milder accents, "I didn't mean to be
unkind. I want to be good to you and help you, so much so that I asked
Bingley"--Bingley is my housekeeper--"whether I could stay to dinner."

"That's good of you--but this magnificence----?"

"I'm going on later to the Foreign Office reception."