his close attention. He sat all through the evening
after a supper of bread and cheese and ginger beer in his snug,
small room, furnished principally with well-filled book-shelves. The
room had a glowing fire and a green-shaded reading lamp. He sat
staring beyond his law books at visions, waking dreams that came and
went. The dangers of exposure that opened before him were in these
dreams, but there were other mind-pictures that filled his life with
a glow of colour. How different from the drab horizons that
encircled poor Vivie Warren less than a year ago! Poor Vivie, whom
even FitzJohn's Avenue at Hampstead had rejected, who had long since
been dropped--no doubt on account of rumours concerning her
mother--by the few acquaintances she had made at Cambridge, who had
parents living in South Kensington, Bayswater, and Bloomsbury. Here
was Portland Place receiving her in her guise as David Williams with
open arms. Men and women looked at her kindly, interestedly, and she
could look back at them without that protective frown. At night she
could walk about the town, go to the theatre, stroll along the
Embankment and attract no man's offensive attentions. She could
enter where she liked for a meal, a cup of tea, frequent the museum
of the Royal College of Surgeons when she would without waiting for
a "ladies" day; stop to look at a street fight, cause no sour looks
if she entered a smoking compartment on the train, mingle with the
man-world unquestioned, unhindered, unnoticed, exciting at most a
pleasant off-hand camaraderie due to her youth and good looks.

Should she go on with the bold adventure? A thousand times yes!
David should break no law in Vivie's code of honour, do real wrong
to no one; but Vivie should see the life best worth living in London
from a man's standpoint.

David however must be armed at every point and have his course
clearly marked out before his contemplation. He must steep himself
in the geography of South Africa--Why not get Rossiter to propose
him as a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society? That _would_ be a
lark because they wouldn't admit women as members: they had refused
Honoria Fraser. David must read up--somewhere--the history of the
South African War as far as it went. He had better find out
something about the Bechuanaland Police Force; how as a member of
such a force he could have drifted as far south as the vicinity of
Colesberg; how thereabouts he could have got sick enough--he