hands and
a hint of tears, to the story of his disappointment about the Navy; had
fraudulently led him to believe what women were to men. She had been a
cruel beast. For when she had got him to be so very wicked she might
have spared him some of the nastiness, and not said those awful leering
things so loud. Never would he forgive Ellen for dragging him down to
those depths.

He was walking away from Princes Street to his own home now, and the
decent grey vacuity of the streets soothed him. If he only had the sense
to stay in the district of orderly houses where he belonged, and behaved
accordingly, and did not go talking with people beneath him, he could
not come to harm. But that would not alter the fact that he had once
come to harm. As he passed the house at the corner of his street he saw
that a "To Let" board had been put up since the morning. He wondered why
the Allardyces were leaving it. He had been at school with the boys. He
and Willie Allardyce had tied tenth in the mile race at the last school
sports in which he had taken part before he left the Academy. He
remembered how they had all stood at the starting-post in the windy
sunshine, straight lads in their singlets and shorts, utterly uninvolved
in anything but this clean thing of running a race; the women were all
behind the barriers, tolerated spectators, and one was too busy to see
them; his clothing had been stiff with sweat, and when he wriggled his
body the cool air passed between his damp vest and his damp flesh,
giving him a cold, pure feeling. Well, he was not a boy any longer. The
Allardyces were moving; everything was changing this way and that;
nothing would be the same again....

The solidity of his father's house, the hall into which he let himself,
with its olive green wallpaper, its aneroid barometer, an oil-painting
of his mother's father, Mr. Laurie of the Bank of Scotland, made him
feel better. He reminded himself that he belonged to one of the most
respected families in Edinburgh, and that there was no use getting upset
about things that nobody would ever find out, and he went into the
dining-room and poured himself out a glass of whisky, looking round with
deep satisfaction at his prosperous surroundings. There was a very
handsome red wallpaper, and a blazing fire that chased the tawny lights
and shadows on the leviathanic mahogany furniture and set a sparkle on
the thick silver and fine glass on the spread table. "Mhm!" he sighed
co