the light of battle.

"I fear I have no time just now," said the Major, glancing at his
watch. "I must be off. I wish you a very good morning, sir."

"Morgan, my boy," cried the banker, when that gentleman at last
appeared, "I've spent the last hour tackling one of the most terrible
Philistines I have ever met."

END OF BOOK I.

BOOK II.

CHAPTER I

"Which way do we go?" asked Lady Thisleton, as they stood hesitating
at a crossing-stage in Broad Street, City. "Wouldn't it be nice to
stay here and philosophise?"

She was dressed as plainly as possible in a dark brown coat and skirt,
and wore a small hat and veil, so that she was not in the least
conspicuous. Both she and Morgan, having entered on the day's
adventure, were determined to enjoy it, though his mood was far from
being whole-hearted. And, as they surveyed the slow medley of
omnibuses that moved between them and the pavement they were struck by
the scene in the same impersonal way. They did not feel that they
formed any part of it; they saw it as with the eyes of a floating,
invisible spirit. To them it was collective movement and
colour--movement in the hurrying streams pouring from every exit of
the giant stations, in the massed chaos of vehicles, in the sense of
bustle and business and purpose; colour in the crudities of blue,
green, yellow, red, that flared from omnibuses and shop windows, and
that yet were fused into the dun monochrome of town, to the
overwhelming sense of which asphalt and paving and street lamp and
stone buildings and sober costumes all contributed, and with which the
very hubbub seemed to blend.

A vague feeling of tragedy seemed to invade them as their eyes rested
on all this life; but it was the result of an intellectual
perception, not of a sympathetic realisation and comprehension of this
throbbing reality. As for Morgan, the scene made him remember he had
once tried to wrestle with political economy and had disliked it
tremendously, and the thought made him smile.

"Why do you smile?" said Lady Thiselton. "Certainly it is not gay
here. I feel quite overwhelmed. All these faces--pre-occupied,
cheerful, sad, worn, despairing, hopeful, starved, well-fed--suggest
such a whirl. I invent a whole biography for each one that catches my
eye. I wonder how far I am right--I who am only a woman of the world;
which means I know nothing of life outside of my own four walls and a
few other four walls that more or less res