her youth; her full, rounded form; her clear
complexion; the provocation of her unfathomable reserve, which never went
so far as to prevent conversation, carried on on the lodgers' part with
animation, and on hers with an equable amiability. It must be that Mr
Verloc was susceptible to these fascinations. Mr Verloc was an
intermittent patron. He came and went without any very apparent reason.
He generally arrived in London (like the influenza) from the Continent,
only he arrived unheralded by the Press; and his visitations set in with
great severity. He breakfasted in bed, and remained wallowing there with
an air of quiet enjoyment till noon every day--and sometimes even to a
later hour. But when he went out he seemed to experience a great
difficulty in finding his way back to his temporary home in the
Belgravian square. He left it late, and returned to it early--as early
as three or four in the morning; and on waking up at ten addressed
Winnie, bringing in the breakfast tray, with jocular, exhausted civility,
in the hoarse, failing tones of a man who had been talking vehemently for
many hours together. His prominent, heavy-lidded eyes rolled sideways
amorously and languidly, the bedclothes were pulled up to his chin, and
his dark smooth moustache covered his thick lips capable of much honeyed
banter.

In Winnie's mother's opinion Mr Verloc was a very nice gentleman. From
her life's experience gathered in various "business houses" the good
woman had taken into her retirement an ideal of gentlemanliness as
exhibited by the patrons of private-saloon bars. Mr Verloc approached
that ideal; he attained it, in fact.

"Of course, we'll take over your furniture, mother," Winnie had remarked.

The lodging-house was to be given up. It seems it would not answer to
carry it on. It would have been too much trouble for Mr Verloc. It
would not have been convenient for his other business. What his business
was he did not say; but after his engagement to Winnie he took the
trouble to get up before noon, and descending the basement stairs, make
himself pleasant to Winnie's mother in the breakfast-room downstairs
where she had her motionless being. He stroked the cat, poked the fire,
had his lunch served to him there. He left its slightly stuffy cosiness
with evident reluctance, but, all the same, remained out till the night
was far advanced. He never offered to take Winnie to theatres, as such a
nice gentleman ought to