may be a new light to you."

Lewisham growled, went from page 1 to page 3--conscious of their both
looking to him now--even intensely--and discovered Chaffery in a
practical vein.

"There is but little light, and portable property in that house in
Clapham that has escaped my lamentable improvidence, but there are one
or two things--the iron-bound chest, the bureau with a broken hinge,
and the large air pump--distinctly pawnable if only you can contrive
to get them to a pawnshop. You have more Will power than I--I never
could get the confounded things downstairs. That iron-bound box was
originally mine, before I married your mother-in-law, so that I am not
altogether regardless of your welfare and the necessity of giving some
equivalent. Don't judge me too harshly."

Lewisham turned over sharply without finishing that page.

"My life at Clapham," continued the letter, "has irked me for some
time, and to tell you the truth, the spectacle of your vigorous young
happiness--you are having a very good time, you know, fighting the
world--reminded me of the passing years. To be frank in
self-criticism, there is more than a touch of the New Woman about me,
and I feel I have still to live my own life. What a beautiful phrase
that is--to live one's own life!--redolent of honest scorn for moral
plagiarism. No _Imitatio Christi_ in that ... I long to see more of
men and cities.... I begin late, I know, to live my own life, bald as
I am and grey-whiskered; but better late than never. Why should the
educated girl have the monopoly of the game? And after all, the
whiskers will dye....

"There are things--I touch upon them lightly--that will presently
astonish Lagune." Lewisham became more attentive. "I marvel at that
man, grubbing hungry for marvels amidst the almost incredibly
marvellous. What can be the nature of a man who gapes after
Poltergeists with the miracle of his own silly existence
(inconsequent, reasonless, unfathomably weird) nearer to him than
breathing and closer than hands and feet. What is _he_ for, that he
should wonder at Poltergeists? I am astonished these by no means
flimsy psychic phenomena do not turn upon their investigators, and
that a Research Society of eminent illusions and hallucinations does
not pursue Lagune with sceptical! inquiries. Take his house--expose
the alleged man of Chelsea! _A priori_ they might argue that a thing
so vain, so unmeaning, so strongly beset by cackle, could only be the
dis