her head away; her cheek was deeply dyed. She
knew what I was doing; she might divine my thoughts. I shut the book
lest she should see the vile title of a thing I had hitherto liked. And
the _Prizelied_ crashed back into the ear.

CHAPTER XIII

NUMBER THREE

It was the middle of November when I was shown once more into the old
room at the old number in Elm Park Gardens. There was a fire, the
windows were shut, and the electric light was a distinct improvement
when the maid put it on; otherwise all was exactly as I had left it in
August, and so often pictured it since. There was "Hope," presiding over
the shelf of poets, and here "Paolo and Francesca," reminiscent as ever
of Melbury Road, upon a wet Sunday, years and years ago. The day's
_Times_ and the week's _Spectator_ were not less prominent than the last
new problem novel; all three lay precisely where their predecessors had
always lain; and my own dead self stood in its own old place upon the
piano which had been in St. Helena with Napoleon. It is vanity's deserts
to come across these unnecessary memorials of a decently buried
boyhood; there is always something stultifying about them, and I longed
to confiscate this one of me.

But there was a photograph on the chimney-piece that interested me
keenly; it was evidently the very latest of Bob Evers, and I studied it
with a painful curiosity. Was the boy really altered, or did I only
imagine it from my secret knowledge of his affairs? To me he seemed
graver, more sedate, less angelically trustful in expression, and yet
something finer and manlier withal: to confirm the idea one had only to
compare this new one with the racket photograph now relegated to a rear
rank. The round-eyed look was gone. Had I here yet another memorial of
yet another buried boyhood? If so, I felt I was the sexton, and I might
be ashamed, and I was.

"Looking at Bob? Isn't it a dear one of him? You see--he is none the
worse!"

And Catherine Evers stood smiling as warmly, as gratefully, as she
grasped my hand; but with her warmth there was a certain nervousness of
manner, which had the odd effect of putting me perversely at my ease;
and I found myself looking critically at Catherine, really critically,
for I suppose the first time in my life.

"He is playing foot-ball," she continued, full as ever of her boy. "I
had a letter from him only this morning. He had his colours at Eton, you
know (he had them for everything there), but