nister. Gregory
said that he had friends in Cornwall and that he might run down and see
them one day--and then he might see her and Les Solitudes, too. And Miss
Woodruff said that that would be very nice.

He heard the last words of the colloquy with Louise as his coat was put
on in the hall. "_Alors il ne faut pas renvoyer la robe, Mademoiselle?_"

"_Mais non, mais non; nous nous tirerons d'affaire_," Miss Woodruff
replied, springing gaily up the stairs, her arm, with a sort of
dignified familiarity, in which was encouragement and protection, cast
round Louise's shoulders.

CHAPTER V

Gregory walked at a brisk pace from Mrs. Forrester's house in Wilton
Crescent to Hyde Park Corner, and from there, through St. James's Park,
to Queen Anne's Mansions where he had a flat. He had moved into it from
dismal rooms when prosperity had first come to him, five or six years
ago, and was much attached to it. It was high up in the large block of
buildings and its windows looked over the greys and greens and silvers
of the park, the water shining in the midst, and the dim silhouettes of
Whitehall rising in stately significance on the evening sky. Gregory
went to the balcony and overhung his view contemplatively for a while.
The fog had lifted, and all London was alight.

The drawing-room behind him expressed an accepted convention rather than
a personal predilection. It was not the room of a young man of conscious
tastes. It was solid, cheerful and somewhat _naif_. There was a great
deal of very clean white paint and a great deal of bright wall-paper.
There were deep chairs covered with brighter chintz. There were blue and
white tiles around the fireplace and heavy, polished brass before. On
the tables lay buff and blue reviews and folded evening papers, massive
paper-cutters and large silver boxes. Photographs in silver frames also
stood there, of female relatives in court dress and of male relatives in
uniform. Behind the photographs were pots of growing flowers; and on the
walls etchings and engravings after well-known landscapes. It was the
room of a young man uninfluenced by Whistler, unaware of Chinese screens
and indifferent to the rival claims of Jacobean and Chippendale
furniture. It was civilised, not cultivated; and it was thoroughly
commonplace.

Gregory thought of himself as the most commonplace of types;--the
younger son whose father hadn't been able to do anything for him beyond
educating him; the younge